


Mantra

by Mal_ice (WickedIntentions)



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Age Difference, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Borderline Worship, Bottom!Rick/Top!Morty, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Controlled Psychopathy, Coping with Grief, Dependency, Depression, Dirty Talk, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Humiliation, Incest, M/M, Messy Feelings, Power Dynamics, Praise Kink, Role Reversal, Sexual Tension, Slight Forced Prostitution, Underage Drinking, Very Dubious Science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2020-11-05 13:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20774603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedIntentions/pseuds/Mal_ice
Summary: Rick N-66ς (“Six-Six-Sig”) has a reputation for integrating himself into the shoes of dead Ricks and claiming their families as easily as filling his flask with a new flavor. It’s free room and board to him while he pursues volatile projects that often end in catastrophe. He’s gone through many Mortys already and understands their nuances to the point that he feels in control of his otherwise chaotic situation.But Dimension F-2δ96 contains an anomaly—a Morticia. She wears the familiar yellow shirt, blue jeans, white sneakers, and vacant expression. Her brain waves serve their purpose in hiding his. She has all the usual issues that stem from a stressful household, a sense of inadequacy, neglect, unrequited hormones, and cosmic uncertainty. For all intents and purposes, she’s a Morty looking for a little adventure.Rick knows it’s a bad idea. He knows there’s an untested set of variables in having a Morticia instead of a Mortimer. There’s no control group for this experiment. But, goddamn it, he can’t be bothered to find a new home until planetary devastation forces him to, even when his Morty does a decidedly un-Morty thing by channeling unhealthy feelings onto him in the wake of her Rick’s suicide.





	1. The Outlier

**Author's Note:**

> Click [here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1M6o7BuF42j-rpsgRI0c8iNgtCT7rF9rs) for a folder of artwork devoted to this story!  
Click [here](https://rickedsab.tumblr.com/post/190159513695/for-wickedintentions-who-wrote-an-amazing-fic) for fanart by [RickedSab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RickedSab/pseuds/RickedSab)!
> 
> * * *
> 
> **This story prominently deals with** an extremely taboo and messy relationship between Rick Sanchez from Dimension N-66ς (non-canonical) and Morticia Smith from Dimension F-2δ96 (also non-canonical). Although this Rick isn't directly associated with this Morty, it's still incest. Rick is seventy years old, and Morty is fifteen years old. Personally, I fantasized about older men as early as my preteen years, which is why I write taboo pairings. It’s harmless fiction to me.
> 
> **In the background, you'll also find** instances of a complicated arrangement between Rick N-66ς and Rick J19ζ7 ("Doofus Rick" from the series). It's consensual, but there is a great deal of emotional manipulation involved. For one party, it's business. For the other, it's a bubble of self-acceptance where none can be found. Expectations differ greatly on both sides. This doesn't have a lot of bearing on the story, but I've always wished for more Rick/Rick interactions. This just happened to fit into the story.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

Rick N-66ς considers himself an outlier in the range of his infinite selves.

He never dated Diane—finding her unremarkable even before his days of portal-hopping through the multiverse—so he didn’t father a Beth or suffer a Jerry of his own. Other Ricks accuse him of being a “Jerry-lover,” but the truth is Jerry’s antics hardly faze him because he doesn’t have memories of a wide-eyed prodigy ruining her life with teenage pregnancy to make it into a personal vendetta. Jerry is stupid like everyone else is stupid, and Rick doesn’t have the motivation to feel anything stronger than mild annoyance over it.

He didn’t befriend Birdperson or Squanchy and segue into the era of the Flesh Curtains. He didn’t fill his young life with drugs and unprotected sex. He never married. He went to college and found it an intellectually enriching experience. His alcoholism didn’t develop until his forties, at which point U-2ψ0 appeared through a vortex of radioactive green to literally take a piss on his research for alternative eco-friendly fuel sources and insult him for taking so long to make his first portal gun.

He’s Six-Six-Sig, the loneliest Rick, the Dimensional Demon. He went from making a five-year plan for a perfect organic economy to destroying more Earths than any other planet, and he’s indirectly responsible for the deaths of thirty-six Jerrys, seventeen Beths, eight Summers, and four Mortys. The dissolution of fifty-six marriages are on him, and ten Mortys are currently abandoned in the Citadel of Ricks by his hand. His actions have triggered at least twelve suicides in his not-really family. Any Morty who knows him won’t hesitate to call him the actual devil.

Also, he wears glasses. They’re rimless, rectangular, and they sit so low on the bridge of his nose that they err on the side of unhelpful. He only needs them when he reads, but he never cares enough to take them off when he’s done.

When Rick flees Dimension Y-026 with cataclysmic DNA splicing and total atmospheric ruin over the United States on his coattails, he leaves behind another Beth, Jerry, Summer, and Morty to deal with his consequences. He’ll miss the homemade blueberry waffles.

He spends some time in his favorite off-world bar while he decides where to go next. Sometimes, the name translates as Florbarg’s Pub—or Yarg of the Gandargarr. Other times, it’s Poradbla_-aar-_rgwertsgifle, which he’s made a game out of trying to say without belching halfway through. Same bar, different dimension: Similar to worlds, he never visits the same one twice.

His micro-computer scans the Citadel’s database for Rick deaths and cross-references them with all known habitable dimensions, omitting the ones he has already visited or deemed unsuitable. The last thing he needs is a vengeful Rick strangling him while he sleeps. Why deal with the hassle of assassinating himself when there are so many empty Smith households waiting to be seamlessly filled? It’s just more efficient.

By the time he finishes his second whiskey and chews the ice, the computer pulls up a lengthy list, and he gives the ol’ random number generator a spin.

“**F-2δ96**,” it proclaims in big, bold text.

Rick tosses back his third drink.

* * *

* * *

_Wednesday, October 22, 2014_

The problem with leaving it up to chance is potentially walking into severe issues caused by Beth’s abandonment, Jerry’s self-loathing, Summer’s resentment, and Morty’s neglect. Like with Ricks, there’s a range for judging a Smith household on its emotional health.

Rick has lived in the min, median, and max and can adjust his strategy in the moment. He has rehearsed lines for greeting his distraught or ecstatic “daughter” and earning him a place to sleep, eat, and tinker free of charge. He knows how to make Jerry grudgingly accept him as the man of the house—because who wants to be cooped up with a passive-aggressive Jerry? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. But he has a lot of experience.

Morty is easily impressed with a jaunt through the streets of Ghartul to get the Vortzaky equivalent of ice cream, a cold, milky substance that tastes exactly like the flavor you’re thinking about. (Rick has fun with that. Get Morty thinking about something disgusting and watch the show. It’s a total downward spiral.) Summer almost always suffers the effects of Beth’s abandonment, so she’s not so easy to win over. With her, it takes time, and Rick is patient when he carves out his newest living space.

When Rick steps out of a portal on the Smiths’ wilted lawn in Dimension F-2δ96, the October air is crisp and scented with earth and decay. It’s five o’clock on a Wednesday, which means he’s probably interrupting dinner. He glances around the neighborhood, decorated with scarecrows, hay bales, and half-rotted pumpkins, before tucking his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and heading to the door.

In his inebriation, he almost falls on his face when he fails to notice the step that wasn’t there in his last dimension. He rings the doorbell with an annoyed quirk to his brow.

Twelve seconds later, the door opens, revealing a hollow-eyed Beth with the neck of a wine bottle hooked between two fingers. She looks like she hasn’t bathed in a few days; her blonde strands are plastered to her greasy forehead. Her cheeks are gaunt, telling of how little she’s been eating.

Rick takes one look at the state of his daughter and realizes he shouldn’t have favored RNG this time.

Beth sways on her feet and blinks at him. Her free hand comes up to press to her mouth, and her eyes fill with tears that spill over and track down the powder on her cheeks. “…Dad?”

Rick isn’t affectionate by any means, but he knows how to play the game. This Beth is the most broken he’s ever seen her, too far gone to even care about her own hygiene, and the fastest way to a Beth’s heart is positive connection and reassurance. He wraps her into his arms and shushes her. She drops her wine bottle on his toes, and his grunt turns into a wheeze when she embraces him hard enough to crush his lungs.

“It’s okay, sweetie. Don’t cry,” he says, trying not to sound robotic. Without that familial connection, hugging her feels like wrapping his arms around a rubber tree plant. Her back is boney, and her shoulders cut into his biceps. She smells like body odor and stale perfume.

“Dad,” she sobs into his chest, digging her fingers into his shoulder blades. “I thought—you said you_—you’re alive.” _

“Honey—the carpet!” exclaims Jerry’s voice as he and Summer come into view. He soon utters a gasp. “Rick? You’re alive?”

Rick drags his gaze from Jerry’s terse frown to Summer’s curled lip. Neither of them look happy to see him. While it’s a familiar sentiment when he enters a new Smith residence, something seems… off. This isn’t the usual disdain.

“You’re alive,” Summer says in her unaffected monotone.

He releases Beth, who clings to him, and he gives a shrug as he adjusts his glasses. He’s at a loss on this one until he can gather more information. “I’m ali_-iiugh-_ve.”

How did F-2δ96 die? Suddenly, it seems like a crucial tidbit.

Five straight minutes of crying later, Beth lets him into the house. The carpet in front of the door is soaked with red wine, and it squelches underfoot. She mutters something about getting a washcloth and disappears into the kitchen, allowing him to pass by Jerry and Summer’s accusing stares and head for the garage. He takes eight seconds to make his observations, dragging his eyes all over the living room, from the display case behind the couch to the coffee table strewn with magazines.

Each house is built a little different from the last, but the garage is a constant. The workbench sits undisturbed with gadgets and half-finished projects. The shelves are cluttered with boxes scrawled in familiar handwriting. Blueprints and indecipherable notes are tacked to the corkboard. There’s a portal gun on the shelf above the washing machine.

Rick has his suspicions before he checks his micro-computer for clarification.

“**Suicide**,” it proclaims, once again in big, bold letters.

“I kept everything the same as you left it,” Beth mumbles behind him. She’s absolutely sloshed; it’s clear in her voice. He doesn’t think she’ll remember this in the morning and dreads another teary reunion. “I wouldn’t let anyone touch a thing. Morty kept sneaking in here hoping to find you.”

“Appreciate it. Where’s that little—where’s Mo_-oorr-_rty, anyway?”

“Upstairs, I think.” She steps out to call for him.

Rick pockets the abandoned portal gun and peruses the workbench, sifting through the mess and judging it. He sees what he thinks are the beginnings of a nanofiber mesh. (“Boring.”) There’s a calaginite-core laser pistol. (“Eh.”) One blueprint is an android version of himself with consciousness-transfer capabilities. (“Who cares?”) A press of a button on a small chrome box creates a holographic 3D rendering of a Federation outpost, drawing attention to a weapons cache in a vault. (“Not wo_-orr-_rth it.”) It’s generic tinkering, and it provides no answer for F-2δ96’s suicide.

Soft footsteps alert him to his grandson padding down the staircase.

He doesn’t make a habit of giving up on shaky situations. When he integrates himself into a new dimension, he doesn’t say, “Fuck it,” and portal out to start the process anew somewhere else. If Beth can’t stop crying, or Jerry won’t stop nagging, he grits his teeth and bears it. When the planet is on the verge of collapse, threatening his life, that’s when he considers it time to bail.

He can handle some tears and snide comments. He can fill the shoes of a Rick who left a heartbroken family behind to kill himself for seemingly no reason.

“Grandpa Rick, y-y-you’re alive…” whispers a high-pitched voice. He turns to face it and freezes.

What Rick_ can’t _ handle is feeling so out of his depth that he doesn’t know how to react.

Morty F-2δ96 is a girl. Oh, boy.

* * *

* * *

Morty clings even harder than her mother. Rick’s thankful for the experiment backfire that turned his false and floating ribs into mush, forcing him to replace them with titanium alloy; they’re right around where his granddaughter’s short arms can reach while she buries her face in his abdomen.

He takes a pull from his flask—spiced rum—and looks down at the long curly hair sprouting from the vicinity of his belly button. Autopilot usually takes over when he’s comforting a Morty, but he’s knocked so off-balance that all he can do is stare.

_ Morty _F-2δ96_ is a girl. _

It’s well within his right to say, “Morty’s a girl. I’m out,” and drop the mic. He seriously considers leaving this dimension and crossing it from his itinerary forever when his mind brings up an arbitrary list of scenarios:

They’re off-world for a supply run, and his portal gun gets smashed on Plorbian territory, dominated by males who go into uncontrollable, ravenous heats in the presence of a fertile womb. Her period hits while they’re running for their lives, and her cramping slows her down and gets her killed. Her period hits when they’re sneaking through a Rakternag colony, full of monsters that can smell the faintest trace of blood from miles away. Her period hits—

It’s a bad idea. Rick isn’t working off any data, and, as much as he trusts his own judgment, he prefers cold numbers to back up his theories. Morticias are so rare that he’s never heard of anyone having one. They’re so rare that it never crosses a Rick’s mind to _ want _ one. Because—why? There are more risks than with an ordinary tried-and-true Mortimer. Morticias stand out more, and that defeats their purpose.

Curly hair shifts, and brown eyes peer up at him. “You’re wearing glasses?”

“Grandpa’s getting old. When you get old, your shit fails. Your body falls apart. You’ll see—you’ll get it in about ten years, Morty.” He’s rambling, firing off his unfiltered thoughts to fill the space with noise. It’s one of his coping mechanisms. “You’ll see what I me_-eeuug-_an. Enjoy scratching your ass without your joints popping while you can.”

“Undisputed master of pep talks, everyone,” Jerry snaps, stalking into the garage. “Are you kidding me, Rick? You get home, and the first thing you do is send Beth into hysterics and terrorize my daughter. Why are you even back? You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I live here, Jerry. My shit’s here. How about we toss you outside and see how long before you come back for your _ Reader’s Digest _ and ceramic kitten figurines?” He’s still babbling nonsense while he has a female Morty attached to his midsection like she’ll never let go again. Half the family already hates him, and this universe is looking less and less worth it with every second. His fingers twitch in the direction of the two portal guns bulging in his pocket.

“Unbelievable! You seriously see nothing wrong with what you did? You think you can just stroll right in, and everything’ll go back to how it was?”

“Mistakes were made, all right? It’s called ‘owning up.’ Men do it. How about you—y-y-you’d get it if you’d own up to how you couldn’t keep Beth from falling apart while I was gone.” Rick chuckles in a humorless, empty way. “Get real. How many—while we’re on the subject, how many times did you make her cry today? I saw the blanket. You sleeping on the couch?”

Jerry flounders in red-faced rage.

Rick offers a sagely nod and tosses back a gulp of rum. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Right. Now, get the fu_-uuuhh-_ck off my balls.”

“Say good-bye to Grandpa Rick, Morty. He’s not staying.” Jerry grabs Morty by the arms and yanks her away from him. His eyes are downright venomous. “You should’ve killed yourself.”

“Whoa, shit!” Rick tries not to laugh as he screws his face up in what he thinks is disapproval or outrage. He’s not entirely sure how to make those expressions. “Not cool, Jer.”

“Things were better without you here—they were getting better! You weren’t missed!”

This time, Rick laughs. He laughs hard. Unlike other Ricks, he doesn’t get his kicks from antagonizing the man, but he’s annoyed by the questions and his confrontational attitude. He burns with the need to put him in his place, running hot enough to give himself a headache. “Yeah, I can tell. Are those divo_-oorr-_rce papers crudely stuffed beneath your armchair cu_-uuhh-_shion? Sure, I wear glasses, but I’m not fucking blind. You were already halfway out the door when I left.”

He doesn’t know that for sure; he’s taking shots in the dark. In his experience, if Beth can’t handle his absence for a second time, it leads to irreparable problems in the marriage. If she has to choose between her father and her husband, Jerry is gone. If she thinks Rick’s suicidal, she’ll do anything to make him happier. He won’t lower himself to playing the pity card, but it’s enough that it plants the idea at the back of her mind.

“Get out of my house,” Jerry yells, tugging the protesting Morty to the door. “Get out of our lives and stay away from my family!”

“C’mon, I bet you’re secretly loving this. Admit it,” Rick cajoles. “Now that I’m back, Beth’s too distracted to kick you out. You just got another week of rent-free living, baby!”

“Oh, fuck you!”

Morty wrenches free of her father’s grip and rubs her arms. Her eyes are glassy with tears, and she sends her gaze to her sock-clad feet. “He’s not Rick.”

_ “What?” _

“He’s not our Rick,” she repeats. “He’s—he’s a different one.”

Rick sizes her up with a critical glance. She’s more observant than he expected. He wonders what gave him away. Does he smell different from her Rick? Is it the glasses? The titanium ribs? The spiced rum? Was he too tame? Whatever it is, there’s no reason to pretend to be F-2δ96 now that the truth’s out.

“I—” Jerry closes his mouth with a snap and looks baffled. He’s visibly struggling to switch gears. “How can you tell?”

“Our Rick doesn’t wear glasses, and he doesn’t—and he wasn’t this mean.”

“‘Wasn’t this mean’? Rick was always an asshole!”

“Not like this,” Morty insists, lifting her eyes. She wraps her arms around herself. “My Rick was the nicest Rick. I know that’s not saying much, but he _ was.” _

“So, you’re saying he was the Mortyest Rick? No wo_-ouh-_nder he ki—” Rick cuts himself off when the girl gives him a wide-eyed stare full of horror. Even Jerry looks contrite, probably thinking of every little thing he said or did that could’ve led to F-2δ96’s suicide. They’ve completed his sentence in their minds, so he tucks his hands under his elbows and arranges his features into indifference. “No wonder he killed himself.”

A short time later, he sits at the kitchen table with the Smiths. Beth throws together a plain ham-and-pepper-jack sandwich for him. He chews it while considering the morose picture in front of him. Jerry told Beth and Summer the news without an ounce of tact. The four of them huddle together in mourning over their dead Rick, a man who knew everything, did everything, and died with the realization that there was no point to any of it—and that the universe and all universes would soon forget him.

“Ughh, October. Everything’s either dead or dying.” Rick wipes the spittle from his lips. “Am I right?”

None of them pay him any attention except for Morty, who hasn’t taken her eyes off him the entire time. He wonders what’s going through her dumb little anomalous mind before deciding he doesn’t care. He’s off to a rocky start—his rockiest yet—but he knows he can veer back on track.

“Tough crowd.”


	2. Boy Are Girls, and Dogs Are Cats

“Ask away.” Rick kicks back in his chair at the kitchen table as he offers himself up for interrogation. This is new to him; he usually pretends to be a different Rick or introduces himself to a “Rick-virgin” family without having to answer too many questions. But Morty F-2δ96 saw right through him and forced him to admit to impersonation.

_ Already a pain in my ass like a true-blue Morty. In that way, she’s identical to the rest, _ he thinks, flicking his eyes in her direction before returning them to the half-eaten sandwich in his hands. He can barely taste it, but hunger clenches his stomach. While he waits for his pseudo-family to fire away, he tears out another mouthful and chews it.

“Okay, I think we’re all confused,” Jerry begins at the opposite end of the table. “You’re telling us Rick’s dead… but you’re right here.”

“You’re the only one who’s confused, Dad.” Summer knits her brow and props her face up on her fist. Her phone lies within reach, but the fingerprint-smudged screen is dark. She doesn’t look up from the grain of the table as she traces shapes into it with her other hand. “There’s no other way to take it. Grandpa Rick is gone forever—just like he promised—and this stranger thought he could take his place without us realizing.”

“You _ know _ what I mean.”

“I know what Dad’s trying to say,” Morty says from Rick’s left. The girl looks miserable, close to tears judging by the tremor in her hands and squinty red eyes, but she’s holding it in. “I’m confused, too. My stomach feels sick knowing Rick’s… Rick’s gone, but I can still see him and hear his voice. It—it makes it—it hurts a little less than not having anything to remind us of him. Not everyone—some people aren’t so lucky, you know?”

“This definitely isn’t healthy,” Jerry mutters.

“I haven’t heard an actu_-uuh-_al question yet,” Rick reminds them. “Just saying.”

“Dad,” Beth says. _ “Rick_. Why are you really here—specifically in this dimension?”

“I can’t go back to my old world, and I don’t have an actual home anymore. I came here because you guys didn’t already have a Rick. Call me sentimental, but I like to have somewhere to hang my hat.”

“You want to move in with us.”

“Sure.” Rick uses the lengthy silence to finish the last two bites of his sandwich. He brushes the crumbs from his palms and crosses his arms. Beth looks conflicted, and he knows she’s overthinking it, caught in a loop of indecision. “Look, you’re the boss. It’s your house. Lay do_-ouu-_wn ground rules, and I’ll follow them. I’m your Rick if you’ll have me. If not, I’ll fuck off, and you’ll never see me again. I guarantee it.”

Her brow crinkles. “Will others show up after you leave?”

“Possibly. Unlikely. Look at it this way: The only reason I’m here is because my computer measured the half-life of a calipus spore floating in the drink of the guy sitting next to me, multiplied it by Terebrinia’s unstable integer, and used the result to choose, completely at random, from a list of Rick-less dimensions.” He burps and fingers the outline of the flask in his pocket. “It wasn’t fate. It wasn’t planned. I clicked a button, and your number came up. Also, that guy died seconds after drinking the spore—if you want to give it some kind of obscure meaning. Saw it coming a mile away.”

Beth, a naturally curious creature, leans forward. “‘Terebrinia’s unstable integer’?”

“Yeah, Terebrinia’s four moons—eh, maybe five or six now. They have unpredictable lunar cycles because they ricochet off each other all the time. That’s what happens when you capture za_-augh-_merites in an anti-gravity net right before they smash into your planet. They’re indestructible, so you’re stuck with them. Since the integer is dependent on that chaotic cycle, I use it as my default for true-random calculations.”

“That’s… actually really interesting. How long are the days on that planet?”

“Perpetual daylight; Terebrinia sits between two yellow dwarfs. They just have shit flying across their sky casting huge shadows. Call that nighttime if you want.”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough.” Summer grabs her phone and stands from the table.

“Summer,” Beth protests.

“No, Mom. I get that you need this because you have, like, childhood issues with your dad or whatever. But I’m not going to ignore the fact that you’re actually thinking about replacing Rick with a copy—not even an identical one, either!” Summer heads for the door and glances over her shoulder. “I loved Grandpa. You can’t ask me to crudely paste those feelings on this guy now that I know he’s dead.”

She leaves stifling silence in her wake, broken by Jerry’s low whistle at Beth’s expense. She glares at him. Rick’s face remains neutral through it all. A better Rick would’ve had a smart comment ready to defuse or incite hostility, but he lacks the urge to craft one, preferring to let the scene play out at its own pace.

Morty fidgets before looking at Rick. “You didn’t tell him not to drink it?”

“What?”

“If you knew there was something wrong with that guy’s drink, why didn’t you tell him?”

It takes him a couple seconds to decipher the relevance of her question. “Because I’m Rick Sanchez. You know, as ‘nice’ as you claim he was, Eff-Two-Delta-Ninety-Six would’ve done the same.”

“‘Eff-Two’—?”

“—Your di_-iiugh-_mension number. Jeez, didn’t your Rick teach you anything? This is basic stuff.”

“Well…”

“Holy shit! What the fuck is that?!” Rick demands without warning, startling the Smiths. They all swing their heads to follow the trajectory of his gaze, locked on the tiny orange tabby that just strolled into the kitchen.

“They don’t have cats on your last planet, Rick?” Jerry asks, raising an eyebrow.

“A cat instead of a dog,” he muses, scratching the side of his face and ignoring the question. “Huh.”

“I know, right? That’s what I said. But Morty wouldn’t leave the pet store without it.”

“He’s a boy,” Morty corrects, leaving her seat to kneel beside the meowing kitten and stroke its sides. “His name is Scrumptious.”

“Boys are girls, and dogs are cats,” Rick says to nobody. “Did Morty choose it _ because _ she’s a girl? Do boy Mortys secretly want cats instead of dogs, but something in their genetic makeup prevents that desire from mani_-iiuhh-_festing? Do experiences differ so much between the genders that they culminate in the purchase of an entirely different pet? Is it only ever between a cat or a do_-ou-_g?”

Despite his initial reluctance, the scientist in him entertains intrigue over this untested phenomenon, and he has a habit of talking out loud to himself as a form of note-taking, later forgotten when he finds a new toy to play with. He’ll get over this one, too, in time.

“Well, Rick, I believe Morty picked it because she doesn’t like dogs.” Jerry looks far too proud of himself.

“Him! Jeez…”

“Without a decent sample size, one can only speculate the reasons, Jerry.” Rick watches Morty fawn over the kitten as it pounces on a ball of lint behind Summer’s abandoned chair. He fumbles for his flask. “But I won’t deny the simplest explanations are often the most truthful.”

* * *

* * *

An hour later, when the conversation dwindles to nothingness, the family moves into the living room to use the television for dispelling some awkwardness. Summer is nowhere in sight. The exaggerated game show seems to keep Jerry and Morty enthralled, but Rick fights boredom as he stares, unseeing, at the screen.

On the couch, Beth sits to his right, and Morty is tucked into his left with her legs folded under her. His “daughter” still looks troubled, undoubtedly locked away in thoughts on what’ll be her final decision regarding his presence—or lack thereof—in her household. Rick refuses to aid in the process, to persuade her one way or the other, but he knows he’ll have his answer within the next few hours.

“Rick, what are other worlds like?” Morty whispers during the commercial break. She times it during a jingle for men’s deodorant, like she doesn’t want her parents to know she’s asking him.

Rick glances at the girl before dragging his eyes back to the glowing screen. He keeps his voice low, but he knows Beth can hear him. “You don’t already know?”

“I know about other Ricks and Mortys, but I’ve never—my Rick never took me anywhere.”

He furrows his brow and turns his torso to fully face her. He’s no longer murmuring when he asks, “Seriously? Are you kidding me right now?”

Morty shakes her head.

“Hey, what’s going on over there?” Jerry asks from his armchair.

Rick F-2δ96 had a portal gun, ideas for a defense mesh, a contingency plan, and aspirations to break into a Federation outpost, but he never took his Morty with him to mask his brain waves? That doesn’t sound right to N-66ς. They may be the same person, but he can’t understand F-2δ96’s motivations. Either way—

“All right, I can’t let this go,” Rick says, snagging Morty’s wrist and pulling her with him as he stands from the couch.

Beth and Jerry protest at his back. Ignoring them, he shoots a portal into the wall and leads Morty through the swirling vortex and onto the floating streets of the most technologically advanced city in the Zartker Quadrant. Nighttime on Earth becomes piercing daylight in Ghartul, and they both shield their eyes while they adjust to the light bouncing off reflective surfaces from the purple cylinder-shaped buildings encircling them. This spherical city redirects all portals to the same place to monitor all traffic in and out.

Once Morty can look around without squinting, her eyes grow wide. She swivels her head on her neck, and he watches as her eyes dart from the gifinic billboards that echo, “Wow!” in English text back at her to the waiting service-droids that perk up from their docking pads when her gaze lands on them. They’re modeled to perfection after the Vortzaky race, arrogant, willowy forms that resemble metallic curtains and lack any limbs or facial features.

“Take it all in, Morty,” Rick says. The taligina fiber reel below them moves with his mental nudge, and Morty almost loses her balance. He hooks a finger under the back of her collar to make sure she doesn’t fall off the side into literal oblivion. Cloud-like entities drift past, distorting the rays of light into smokey tendrils. “Eve_-eurr-_rything in this city is controlled by thought. Give it a try.”

He brings the reel to a halt and raises an expectant eyebrow at her. Several Vortzakys brush past them with clear impatience as Morty looks down at her feet and makes a strained expression.

“Think, Morty. Don’t shit yourself. It’s not nearly as hard as you’re making it. Trust me. Just picture what you want it to do, and it’ll go.”

She beams up at him when the reel gives a little shudder and continues crawling along. He grants her an indulgent inclination of his head and wrestles control with ease, upping the speed and sending them around the next corner. They enter a tunnel where rows of dispensaries advertise their contents. The temperature spikes in this contained space, crowded with chattering natives. Their lilting language, impossible to speak with a human throat, sounds akin to wind through tall grass, but harsher, easier dialects—primarily for enslaved races—exist outside of Ghartul. He knows a few words for getting out of a pinch.

After they step off the reel and head for the nearest dispensary, Rick wipes the back of his neck when he feels sweat gathering. Vortzakys radiate heat comparable to a fever, and being surrounded by them is a quick way to die of heatstroke. The dispensary spits out a metal cone packed with a creamy pale-blue substance, and he turns around to hand it to Morty before ushering her back to the tunnel mouth, where he activates the reel once again.

She gives the ice cream a cautious lick and pulls a face. “Eww, Rick, what is this? It tastes like skin!”

“‘Skin,’ Morty? What kind of sick, cannibalistic thoughts are you—” He cuts himself off and gives her a sly smile. “Oh, I get it. Thinking about Jessica?”

“What?” she squeaks. “N-no!”

“Hey, no reason to feel ashamed. All Mortys do it; it’s a Morty constant. But you’re not thinking big. This ice cream is—is—is damn near se_-eeuh-_ntient, Morty. It knows your innermost desires, even the ones you try to bury! Stop jacking yourself off with thoughts of Jessica’s lips. What you _ should_ be thinking about are the lips between her—”

“—Gross, Rick!” Morty spins away from him, but not before he catches sight of how red she is.

He laughs at her. “You know, you’re lucky I like you. You have no idea the kind of bullet you dodged coming here with me.”

She peeks at him through a curtain of hair. “Y-you… you like me?”

“It’s a fi_-iiuh-_gure of speech. Lemon sorbet. Lime. Orange.”

“What are you—”

“—Shh. Just eat your ice cream. Vanilla. Coffee.”

She does as she’s told, and her eyes grow wide again. “Wha…? It—it’s changing, Rick!”

“Oh, really? How about that. Chocolate. Double-fudge brownies. Rocky road.” Rick hears the distinctive whirring engine before he sees it and barely sidesteps a vootcycle as it blurs past. _ “Shit! _ Watch it, asshole!”

Morty shrieks and flings her cone all over the reel. A service-droid rushes to clean it up.

“Goddamn Vortzakys, Morty. Y-y-y-you know why their flavors mimic thoughts? It’s because they thrive on the taste of their own inferiority, but they can’t—th-th-th-that’s not something a rinky-dink little candy shop can put into a flavor.” He cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Especially when they steal all their techno_-ouu-_logy from the Vartzoky Alliance. Even your species’s name is a rip-off. Yeah, you thought you killed all of them, but you didn’t, you bunch of garsaupuls!”

Every Vortzaky in earshot spins around to face them.

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh, shit. _ Haul ass, Morty! Just run!” _

* * *

* * *

“Gotta say, this is kind of a new experience for me—leaving an angry mob and its entire civilization un-vaporized. I haven’t been the Angel of Mercy since my early forties. That’s why they call me ‘Six-Six-Sig.’ I mean, en-six-six-sigma is my dimension number, so it’s not _ completely _ stupid,” Rick rambles as they reappear in the living room, where Beth and Jerry are still watching television in the dark.

Morty glances over her shoulder at where the portal disappeared.

“Uh-oh, looks like the adrena_-auh-_line’s wearing off. Morty, your face is doing that thing—that thing that happens when your mind goes back to a deep, dark, depressing place,” he tells her. “As the Rickest Rick would say, don’t think about it. Put it in a shoebox, dig a three-foot hole, and bury it. But don’t leave a grave marker.”

“Great advice, Dad,” Beth murmurs from the couch. Her damp blonde strands, telling of a recent shower, leave dark spots on her shoulders. She doesn’t look greasy anymore. “Just like Crumpet.”

“I don’t know what a ‘crumpet’ is, but context says it’s a dead animal. Am I piss-warm?”

“Yeah.” She stands from the couch and approaches him. “You hit him with your car when I was seven and tried to blame it on the one-legged neighbor with the pet cemetery in his backyard.”

“That does sound like something I’d do,” he agrees, “but, sorry, wasn’t me. I recognize your need to project your real father’s absent outline onto mine while you’re grieving, but let’s not get carried away with the wistful anecdotes.”

Beth wraps an arm around her midsection, scuffs her toe across the carpet, and pulls off the disposition of an insecure little girl in one downturn of her eyes. “I guess it would be weird to hug you now?”

“I’ll be honest with you: I’m not the hugging type when I’m sober. But I’m not exactly sober, so… go for it. I won’t make it we_-eii-_ird if you won’t.” He lets her step forward and snake her arms under his and around his sides. This time, he doesn’t return the embrace. There’s no reason now that the rubber tree plant knows he’s not her father.

“‘Six-Six-Sig’?” She raises her head from his chest to look up at him. “You don’t seem so bad.”

“Eh. I have my moments.” Rick doesn’t mention how many times and ways he has watched her die. He’s neither a liar nor someone who withholds the truth to protect other people, but he can agree that some things are better left unsaid, like total core meltdown or scrambled protons.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to disassociate you from my father. I mean, how can I? You’re… _ you. _ You’re him. Obviously. Even with the glasses.”

“Glasses that look absolutely ridiculous,” Jerry interjects from his armchair. “There, I said it. Someone had to.”

Beth sends a quick scowl in her husband’s direction. “Don’t listen to him. You look great.”

“I like your glasses, Rick,” Morty says, hanging on his arm. “You look really good in them.”

Rick grunts, feeling like a coat rack. “It’s nice to know you two feel so—you think I’m so_-ouuh _ insecure about the way I look that I need you to chime in. Jerry’s entitled to his opinion like the rest of us.”

Jerry raises an eyebrow.

He stares back at him, unimpressed. “What? You’re expecting me to tack on an insult?”

“Well, I… Yes…?”

“Maybe next time since you’re so disappointed.”

When Rick retrieves his flask to drink from it, Beth places her hand on his to stop him. She takes a sniff at the open cap, and a bitter smile crosses her face. “Is that rum? You… you really aren’t him.”

He removes her hand and steps back, untangling himself from both females. “Just don’t think about it. It’s really good advice.”


	3. Constants and Variables

_ Thursday, October 23, 2014 _

In the end, Beth F-2δ96 is like every other Beth; she can’t say no to Rick Sanchez even at the hypothetical expense of her family’s well-being. Morty’s pleading doesn’t hurt, either, and Jerry’s passive aggression backfires on him, as always, and only solidifies Beth’s decision.

Rick wins a small amount of office space next to the garage. It’s outfitted with a worn cot, a tatty army-green rug, one grimy window, and a pile of fresh linens, which he ignores. He guzzles the rest of his flask and sleeps through the night on a dead Rick’s sheets.

School, work, and trivial pursuits lure the Smiths out of the house the following morning. Rick’s first move is to betray their trusting nature by examining every inch of their space while they’re gone.

Observations reveal, stroke by stroke, the portrait of a cautious, family-oriented Rick—certainly no Simple Rick but as close as an average asshole can aspire. F-2δ96 tinkered but never executed. He dreamed but never awoke. He possessed all the genius and talent of a garden-variety Rick, but love for the Smiths kept him rooted in one dimension. The allure of godhood and infinite realities had no hold on his soul.

His face is a recurring feature in family photographs throughout the living room, beginning with “Morty’s First Trip” to Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound in 2002 and ending with the reunion of 2012 at Olympic National Park. Picture frames across the walls and end tables capture a decade’s worth of moments, one vacation per year.

Beth’s smile, fueled by the steady relationship with her father—so rare, almost as rare as a Morticia, proving this dimension to be one big anomaly—appears radiant all the way up to the Seattle Aquarium in late 2013. Rick finds this final photograph buried in an armoire drawer in her bedroom.

Over a backdrop of glittering purple fish scales, restless green tendrils, and blue, blue, so much damn _ blue, _ the Smiths stand stilted with averted gazes as if caught in mid-argument. Rick F-2δ96 is blurry and halfway out of the frame—walking away from the family he once clutched so tightly under the sun, in the sand, half-submerged in urine-tinged water, and while pigging out on overpriced park food.

These Smiths had a stable Rick, one who suffered self-destructive tendencies but kept them buried instead of taking them out on the multiverse. Did that repression lead to his suicide? Did he regret spending the last decade on his family rather than pursuing selfish endeavors like almost every other version of himself? Did existential despair catch him unaware and tear him asunder?

Rick doesn’t care about the reason, but he loathes not knowing it.

* * *

* * *

The math lecture drones on as Morty finds herself unable to focus on the numbers. It’s a common occurrence in her routine as a student, but it strikes harder than usual today. Her eyes swing from the clock to the window and back again, occasionally skittering over Mrs. McClure to make sure the woman isn’t looking expectantly in her direction with an unanswered question. Every glance at the time increases her impatience for the bell to ring and seemingly lengthens the hours, but she can’t stop herself from doing it.

She thinks she’s handling the situation with Rick as well as can be expected. Her gut churns with a mix of emotions ranging from sadness to anger, she feels both anxious and excited, and her heart clenches from time to time. But she hasn’t cried since the new Rick arrived. Seeing his face, hearing his rough voice, and inhaling the scent of alcohol: Together, the familiarity dulls the pain to something manageable.

The thought of seeing him after school triples her impatience and excitement. She bounces her leg under her desk and taps out a soundless beat on the surface. Her pencil rolls off the blank page of her notebook and clatters to the floor. When she recalls what she remembers of yesterday—that brief peek into what other Mortys experience daily—she grows dizzy with anticipation.

Her Rick sheltered her. He never took her on missions, easy or dangerous, or to an alien world just to prove a point. He told her that nobody knew she existed, and that was exactly how he liked it.

“Someday, I’ll sho_-ouu-_w you the multiverse,” he said, “but I have to make sure I can protect you first. Can you be patient for me, Morty? I wa_-augh-_nt you to see it all.”

He cared about her—listened, gave advice, provided comfort, and answered her questions. They played games together when he wasn’t busy in the garage. He made her feel important in a world where she, average in every conceivable way, often fell into the background in school, society, and even their family. Her hormonal, confused body transformed all that attention and affection into something grotesque; as much as it shamed her, Rick turned her on in ways boys and idols never could.

Morty’s mouth wobbles, and she presses her thighs together. Her fingers cease their tapping so she can wring her hands. Arousal and sorrow bring conflict, and she blinks away tears even as heat settles in her lower abdomen.

These shameful feelings are why Rick is gone.

Her attraction to his intelligence, the need for his praise, the desire to bask in his presence and be attached to his name and all its infamy—all of it led to innocent touches and flirty little words, to late-night masturbation and daytime fantasies during school and dinner. She realized that she wanted to please him.

Over time, Morty pushed, pressed, and dug. Months of yearning gave her the courage to admit to what Rick already suspected: that she harbored incestuous feelings for him.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. Morty skipped school and waited until the house emptied. Rick sat on his stool in the garage, and she caught him off guard by climbing into his lap. She remembers feeling so small and insignificant on top of him, but hormones encouraged her to follow his retreat as she grabbed two fistfuls of his lab coat to steady herself. He fell back against the workbench and propped himself up with his elbows, and she molded herself against his long torso.

Rick turned his face away from her, baring his neck, and uttered a low, “Morty,” in warning. She took it as the invitation it wasn’t and began with shy kisses to the column of his throat, then gained confidence to wrap her lips around his Adam’s apple and suck with a wet _ pop. _

His stifled noise was unlike anything she had ever heard, even in pornography. She sucked, kissed, and tried to coax out more groans in any way she could. She added tongue and dove in without thinking of the consequences. At some point, she started grinding down on him just to ease some of the pressure in her pelvis—and make him hard for her. Her head swam, intoxicated with lust for the formidable erection trapped between her thighs.

Rick pushed her away from his saliva-covered neck, dotted with tiny red marks. He gave her a long, guarded look that revealed nothing about his thoughts or opinion on what was happening. His hand lifted, stroked her hair like it often did, and found the back of her neck. Blunt fingernails raked across her skin lightly enough to raise gooseflesh, and he kissed her on the lips with far more finesse than her teenaged fumbling.

There was no warning when Mom, having forgotten her hospital ID, walked in on them with a half-voiced question. At first, she was silent as Rick shoved Morty away as if that alone could excuse what they’d done. After the shock wore off, Mom screamed, cried, and pulled Morty off Rick so hard that she left finger-shaped bruises on her arm.

_ “Your own fucking granddaughter, Dad? Even I thought there were lines you wouldn’t dare to cross!” _

Dad and Summer weren’t around to hear the shouting match, but there was no ignoring the tension at dinner later that evening and through the months afterward.

With time, Mom forgave Rick, but the damage was done. She was okay with it in a way that said she _ wasn’t _ okay with it—but that she was willing to ignore that it happened because her father was too important to her. But there was something in her strained smile and overbearing presence when Rick and Morty were alone that made everything feel worse.

It couldn’t be erased or undone. It couldn’t be completely forgiven or forgotten.

Like with most things, Rick didn’t want to deal with it, so he left—without his things, without a word, without erasing their memories of his existence. Without Morty. He left a broken household, half of which never learned the true reason for his disappearance because Mom told her to stay quiet.

* * *

* * *

Morty walks to and from school, but, today, she alternates between sprinting and jogging to get home faster than usual. When she reaches the front door, she’s sweaty and heaving to catch her breath. She uses her house key to get inside, tosses her backpack aside on her way through the living room, and pauses at the door to the garage.

Her Rick made the garage soundproof, so there’s no point in trying to listen through the wood. With an excited little tremor, she grasps the doorknob, turns it, and pushes the door inward.

Guttural screaming, wailing guitars, and pulse-thumping beats greet her in the form of too-loud melodeath, and she startles so violently that she hits her elbow against the doorframe. Hissing at the cold agony prickling up the length of her arm, she steps into the garage and slams the door behind her.

Rick N-66ς is different from her Rick in so many ways.

On her way home from school, Morty entertained herself by picturing his sharp blue eyes peering over his glasses. All Ricks are geniuses, but he looks like he can predict all outcomes in seconds. He’s gruff, cruel, and so frighteningly intelligent. He’s… dangerous.

With death metal in her ears and her heart in her throat, Morty stares at Rick’s profile as he bends low over what appears to be crude surgery on some kind of writhing inky-black creature with a hundred spider-like appendages, all tipped with knife-points and some dripping with crimson—_Blood, _ she thinks, horrified. _ Rick’s blood? _

Rick looks focused with gritted teeth and a knitted brow as he unfolds its slimy, translucent flesh and exposes its alien innards. His cheek is slashed with three parallel lines of red, and his glasses teeter on the verge of falling off his nose. Morty doesn’t know what to make of the scene, so she’s frozen to the spot, unsure whether she should announce herself and break his concentration.

“Grab the proto-ribin inhibitor,” he barks above the music without looking at her. “Purple syringe: second shelf, third box from the left.”

Seized with panic from the urgency in his voice and the blood on his face, she forgets his instructions when she throws herself toward the shelves, so she grabs for the first box in reach.

“Left, Morty, _ left,” _ Rick yells at her back. “This little bastard is calling its entire race to destroy us all; we’re gonna be gelatinous stains on the ground in a matter of seconds! Do you wa_-augh-_nt to die? Do you want to kill everyone?!”

Morty screams and breaks a few things in her haste to find the correct hue in a box of seventeen different purple syringes.

Rick N-66ς is different from her Rick in so many ways—

And he turns her on _ even more. _

* * *

* * *

Rick decides he likes to fuck with this Morty. The trychiterium pod he’s working on is as dangerous as a squirming rabbit, but it’s a rare find, providing the opportunity to harvest its unique set of J-proteins. The real danger is in how fragile the corkscrew-shaped fuedernic thermo-pouch is; one wrong move renders the proteins useless. But the girl is a trembling mess of nerves—she really believed the world was about to end if she couldn’t remember her left from her right.

He stifles a laugh as he swipes his computer’s screen to turn down the music. Blood tickles his cheek as he wipes it on his sleeve, and he adjusts his glasses. It’s difficult to dodge all one hundred and sixty-two of the pod’s talons, but the injuries are comparable to paper cuts. The creature is designed for stealth, not offense, and catching one is like finding a six-leaf clover. It's just as flimsy.

Rick already has a buyer lined up in the Citadel, and he’s planning to use the payment for a Prastiverian 45-Series geneto-accelerator. With it, he’ll be able to exponentially hasten the growth of a small colony of Gretandeloplasts he found in the collapsed remains of Galaxy 5280-Fμ. With maturity periods spanning twenty-nine thousand years, it’s impossible to find them in their adult forms.

They’re world destroyers when they reach maturity—capable of enslaving minds in true Lovecraft style—and they’re deceptively easy to imprint, especially since he discovered their craving for salt in its purest form. They tore apart the entirety of 5280-Fμ in a matter of days looking for Murivan gemstones and, when they depleted the source, reverted to inert embryos. They float around like space debris until they land in another galaxy and start the process over again.

If trychiterium pods are six-leaf clovers, Gretandeloplasts are seventy-five-leaf clovers. Rick plans on selling them to Rick A-000, “The” Rick Sanchez, the most violently unstable and narcissistic Rick in the multiverse, for the equivalent of the United States’s net worth in 2026 multiplied by eighty-three.

Rick doesn’t care about the money; he’s sitting on at least twelve prospective sales like this one. It’s a hobby of his to scope out untapped resources and find suitable buyers. It gives him a thrill to discover, stamp his name, and haggle the price in ridiculous sums that could never be spent in a lifetime.

For a moment, he wonders how much his new Morty is worth—not as a Morty, of course, but as a _collectible._ Is there a market for that?

“You know what the Citadel of Ricks is, right?” Rick asks as he angles his microscopic lens over the thermo-pouch and splits it open with his fifteen-blade. The incision oozes with black, dabbed away with a square of cloth.

“Yeah, but I’ve never—never been there.” Morty stands next to him and leans up to watch the procedure through the lens. “Wow, that looks so weird.”

“You’re one to talk; you’d be a goddamn freak show in the Citadel. Yo-_ou-_u’d get eye-fucked from every direction.”

Silence reigns as he extracts the tiny pustules and slides them inside a lubricated vial. He snaps on the cap and places it in an inner pocket of his lab coat.

She looks up at him with pleading brown eyes. “Can we go?”

The corner of Rick’s mouth twitches.


	4. Evil is a Salesman

The Transdimensional Citadel of Ricks: blue and yellow, cobalt and gold. The looming statues and steel plates catch the glint of the sun through the rusty sky, and a cluster of fountains spray a cool mist overhead. Gurgling streams snake underneath sidewalks lined with shrubs and rocks. Pillars jut upward and curve back down like shards among sleek buildings.

Morty and Rick step through the portal into a bustling plaza. For the first twenty seconds, she absorbs her surroundings in silent awe.

To her right, five Mortys have pushed some tables together to have lunch while their Ricks, engrossed in conversation, stand off to the side. Ahead of her, a Rick dressed in a navy-blue jumpsuit and name tag appears to be programming a broom-wielding robot while his Morty, clad similarly, watches over his shoulder. To her left, vehicles zoom down the street in a never-ending blur while Rick and Morty pairs amble across the sidewalks. Far above, staggered walkways hold bystanders looking down into the plaza.

Everywhere she looks, she sees a different Rick and Morty. Some appear to come from the same dimension, and others are mismatched. Some Ricks are alone, and others have other Ricks flanking them—likewise with the Mortys. Not all of them look human or have typical traits.

Ricks scowling, Ricks laughing, Ricks _ smiling. _ Angry, frustrated, indifferent, happy. White and blue; lab coats and shocks of blue hair. Morty is overwhelmed by the number of Ricks. She edges back to take comfort in the proximity of her own Rick, but her fingers touch air. He’s gone.

“Rick?” She turns her head to spot those familiar rectangular glasses—the only distinctive part of N-66ς.

Five Ricks—not hers—swivel around with an irritable echo of, _ “What, _Morty?” and do double-takes at the sight of her. They nudge their companions and point. As more and more Ricks take notice, the muttering begins. Morty mashes her palms together as she heads in an arbitrary direction.

A hand lands on her shoulder and spins her around. It belongs to a Rick in a black pinstripe suit. His fedora tilts low over his gaze.

“You looking for a Rick?” His expression and voice are friendly enough, but something in his eyes makes her uneasy. “I can ho_-ouuu-_ok you up. Got a waiting list of Ricks wanting new Mortys, and I already have the perfect one in mind for you. You like adventures? Of cou_-urr-_rse, you do! What self-respecting Morty doesn’t?”

“Um, my Rick is here. I don’t need—thanks, but I’m good.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Morty catches a gleam: sunlight off a pair of glasses. A bespectacled Rick is surveying the plaza as if searching for something. She squirms her way out of her captor’s loose grip and ducks under his arm, ignoring his calls as she sprints after the other Rick. She loops her arms over his and clings as he whips around.

“What the fuck?”

Morty quickly realizes his glasses aren’t right. While they _ are _ rectangular, they have thick black frames. This isn’t her Rick. She releases his arm and steps back. The outburst has drawn the eyes of the nearby Mortys, who gawk at her over their lunch. “Sorry. Ah, jeez… My bad…”

Did N-66ς abandon her? She doesn’t want to consider the possibility, but her anxiety triples with the realization that she doesn’t know how to get back home without him. With a worried brow, she chews on her fingernail as she scrutinizes the sea of familiar faces. It strikes her then that, if he ever took off his glasses, she’d never be able to find him.

“You look lost,” says the bespectacled Rick she mistook as hers.

“I can’t find my Rick.”

“Yeah, I figured. Know his dimension number?” When she tells him, he shoots her an incredulous stare. “Uh, you sure about that?”

Before she can reply, an exclamation pierces the din: “Heard what you did to Why-Zero-Twenty-Six, Six-Six-Sig. Jesu_-uhh-_s, that was brutal.”

Morty perks up and cranes her neck to spot the speaker, but she can’t pinpoint his location in the crowd. “Yeah, that’s—he’s my Rick. We got separated.”

Bespectacled Rick still looks unconvinced but, with a shrug, leads the way. On the other side of the lunching Mortys, four Ricks stand in the shade of the shard-like pillar. She recognizes her Rick’s glasses at first glance, and her heart jolts in sickened relief.

“Hey, Six-Six-Sig, I think something’s wrong with your Morty.” Bespectacled Rick pushes her into the middle of the group. “If this _ is _ your Morty.”

Morty stumbles over nothing and grabs the hem of N-66ς’s lab coat to steady herself. She stares up at him with wide eyes, and he arches his brow in response. His entourage studies her, spiking her self-consciousness.

“Yeah, she’s my Morty.”

“Experiment backfire?” asks a Rick with a charcoal-gray turtleneck under his lab coat. He reaches out to pinch a bundle of Morty’s long strands, rolling them between two of his gloved fingertips.

She shyly peers up at him and presses her arm against N-66ς’s hip as she admires his pristine uniform: shoulder boards, insignia patches on his arms, glimmering golden badge, bandolier slung across his chest, and pistol holstered at his thigh. Her eyes end at his polished black boots and dart away.

“Nope. She’s the real deal. Found her this way.”

“Typical. Six-Six-Sig always finds all the rare shit.”

N-66ς sneers. “Why else would you pay me? Those trigalphinate regulators aren’t going to de-sync themselves during your lifetime, you fu_-uuh-_cking geezer.”

“Since when do you keep a Morty around, Sig?” This question comes from a Rick smoking a cigarette. He tilts his head back and blows a cloud of smoke above them. His eyes slant at Morty with a mean smile that makes her shiver as he adds, “In one piece, at that.”

“You’re condemning me for what the rest of you assholes do?”

“When it’s you? Yeah.”

“Fair enough.” N-66ς cups the back of Morty’s head, and he steers her between Smoking Rick and a silent Rick with a jagged scar through his closed left eye. “Anyway, got business elsewhere. Let me know if we’ve got a deal, Phi. You know where to find me.”

“Yep.” Uniformed Rick raises his flask in farewell.

“I really like his—that Rick’s uniform,” Morty says once they’re out of earshot. She chances a glance over her shoulder and inadvertently makes eye contact with the Rick in question. He’s still watching her. It gives her a secret thrill.

“Tee-Seven-Phi-Eighty’s a Citadel guard. Mortys wear the uniform, too.” N-66ς gestures at a distant Morty flanked by two Ricks, all wearing the same turtleneck-and-coat combo. They’re armed with hefty rifles and sporting identical bored frowns.

They’re almost out of the plaza when she mumbles, “I was really… really scared when I couldn’t find you… And he—that other Rick—h-he didn’t believe me when I said you’re my Rick.”

“I know. But did you see all the hype you generated? You’re way more appealing without this old bastard hanging over you. Those Ricks were—they couldn’t take their eyes off you. They were fucking _ salivating. _ Who knew, right?”

With pink cheeks, Morty ducks her head. She tries not to read into it too much, but his wording sparks arousal and a potent self-awareness, from the sway in her hips to the way she unconsciously plays with her hair while talking to a Rick. It’s far from a proud observation. “Oh. Jeez. Um, hype for what?”

“Just evaluating our options.” N-66ς nudges her with his elbow. “Don’t worry about it, all right? Let me handle the boring stuff. You just keep doing your thing, and I’ll do mine.”

She agrees, too content at his side to argue.

* * *

* * *

Sometimes, N-66ς really hates himself. Maybe it’s that hate that makes his infinite selves lash out with cheap humor instead of answering a simple question.

After checking the Morty-owned bakery on Prospect Street and Home-Brewed Cafe a block to the south, he wanders the circumference of the cultural district, ducking in and out of museums, art galleries, and hobby stores. The Rick he’s looking for is too distinctive to miss, but he’s nowhere in sight. It’s possible that he, as active-duty Citadel militia, is on assignment, but Rick doubts that’s the case.

“Rick, what—what’re we looking for?” Morty whines at his side. “I wanna—I need to sit down for a while.”

“Just a little longer.” Even knowing it’s a terrible idea, he flags down a pair of Ricks on the street and shoos his Morty behind him so they don’t get distracted. “Hey, got any idea where Jay-Nineteen-Zeta-Seven is?”

“Ye_-auugh-_ah, there’s an overflowing toilet in Sector Nine,” quips the left one. “He’s probably taking his lunch in there.”

They guffaw and high-five each other.

Rick rolls his eyes skyward. “Jesus, am I incapable of being useful for five goddamn seconds?”

“Cool your tits, Sig. Why are you looking for him, anyway?”

“Why else would I be in this shithole? _ Business.” _

“Seriously? What’s that doofus buying? Can’t imagine he’d get much use out of anything you sell.”

“Everyone has a br_-rruh-_eaking point, right?” Rick can feel Morty squirming under his hand, trying to wrench free and peek around him like the curious little shit she is. He tightens his grip in a wordless reprimand, and she goes still. “By next week, maybe this whole place will be a crater. Maybe your face will be a crater. I don’t know. I don’t ask questions; I sell. So, do you know where he is, or do I have to repeat this entire conversation with the next three Ri-_iuuh-_ck-holes?”

They share skeptical glances.

He sighs, long and annoyed, and pulls his micro-computer out of his pocket. “Five-million-flurbo discount—asterisk: blue tier or below, pending exchange rate and dimensional inflation—to the next Rick who gives me what I need.”

Seven eavesdroppers jump in and point him toward volunteer-run Morty Lane Culinary School, so he splits the discount between them. None of them are happy with the compromise and take to the nearest bar for a deciding game of Rick Roulette. He suspects he won’t hear from them again and voids the coupon codes he just created.

In the school’s courtyard, swarming with Mortys taking a recess from classes, semi-circle benches circumscribe a bubbling fountain in the shape of the iconic Chef Rick and Kitchen Boy Morty. On one bench, he finds the elusive Rick, who’s eating lunch from a picnic basket.

Rick describes his relationship with J19ζ7 as “complicated.” As a purveyor of untapped resources, he’s always alert for the things that others overlook. He knows how to view them from different angles and look for subtle notches that amalgamate with other elements. He forms his goals with long-term results in mind because he knows nothing worthwhile happens in the short-term.

This Rick is one such untapped resource. His unique appearance earns him the scorn of other Ricks, who dismiss him as a mentally challenged coprophagiac. He’s a tired joke—a go-to for those who can’t be bothered to put a little effort into their jeering.

They don’t care to find out what he can do—

—but Rick knows he can put a dirt clod in J19ζ7’s hand and get iridescent trunderonite back.

* * *

* * *

This Rick’s eyes don’t seem to focus on any particular point, and his overbite is exaggerated. His neat bowl cut is nothing like the messy tufts most Ricks wear. But, when he smiles at her, it seems more genuine than anything she’s seen so far. He looks and sounds friendly, like his thoughts are written on his face instead of hiding in his eyes.

Morty has seen at least fifty Ricks who fulfill some deep-seated fetish of hers—uniforms, mostly, and gruff, dangerous exteriors—but this is the first time she has felt at ease in the Citadel. She can relax knowing she isn’t some specimen in his eyes.

Her soaked panties, the culmination of the day’s excitement, are moot.

“Oh, wow, is this your new Morty, Sigma?” The friendly Rick kneels in front of her so they’re eye to eye, and his proximity brings the cozy aroma of cookie dough and linen-scented aerosol. He offers his hand. “Hi. I’m Jay-Nineteen-Zeta-Seven. It’s great to meet you.”

Morty slides her hand into his. It’s warm, dry, and rough with callouses. She twirls a lock of hair around her finger and returns his smile. “Hi. I’m, ah… Eff-Two… something.”

Behind her, N-66ς snorts. “Eff-Two-Delta-Ninety-Six.”

“Eff-Two-Delta-Ninety-Six,” J19ζ7 repeats, releasing her hand and looking up at her Rick. “I’ve never seen a girl Morty before.”

“Yep. You and everyone else, so drink her in.”

“It’s kind of overwhelming,” Morty admits. “I knew I was rare, but not like this.”

“Gosh, I bet. You know, we understand how it feels to stand out, Morty.” J19ζ7 stands up and brushes dirt from the knees of his pants. “Your Rick and I are kindred spirits; neither of us married or had children, so we’re different from the rest. But Sigma blends in much better than I do. Other Ricks respect him.”

She hates the hint of self-loathing in his expression and fishes for something to bring his good mood back. “But I think you’re—you’re much nicer than them. I barely know you, but I already really like you.”

He thanks her for the kind words, but she can see they have little effect by the wan pull of his lips.

“Well, as heartwarming as this is, I’ve got other shit to do than watch you two bond,” N-66ς interrupts in a bored drawl. “Morty, go pla_-auu-_y with those other Mortys while I talk to Zeta for a minute. We’ll grab dinner after this.”

“Okay, Rick.” Morty trots along the winding path leading up to the school with her hands behind her back, and she approaches the nearest of her infinite selves, a Morty wearing a yellow hoodie. Even though he’s a different person, knowing he’s _ her _ adds a twinge of awkwardness that she knows is audible in her voice when she says, “Hi, I’m Eff-Two-Delta-Ninety-Six.”

His eyes sweep her, coming to a stop on the slight bumps of her breasts. His mouth falls open in blatant fascination. Seconds later, he snaps out of his daze. “I’m Bee-Two-Ninety-One. Are those—? You have _ boobs.” _

“Um, yeah… I guess. So what?”

B-291 fidgets for a long moment. “Can I—I mean, will you—uh… You wanna, um, go somewhere private?”

Morty furrows her brow. “Not really. Why?”

“Jeez. No reason.” With a blush, he rubs at the back of his neck and looks across the courtyard at where her Rick is talking to J19ζ7. His eyes widen. “You’re Six-Six-Sig’s Morty? Oh, man.”

“Yeah, so?”

“One sec.” He turns away, cups his hands around his mouth, and shouts, “Hey, Lambda, c’mere!”

Another Morty detaches from his posse and jogs over to them. He’s slightly overweight, and he hides his eyes behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. Panting, he introduces himself as O-λ01. “What’s up, dawgs?”

“Say hello to—meet Six-Six-Sig’s newest Morty,” B-291 says, gesturing to Morty, who raises a hand in greeting. “I figured since—well, you know one of his last Mortys, right?”

The companionable air around O-λ01 vanishes at the mention of her Rick. He pushes his sunglasses up his face and rests them on top of his head. His eyes are wary. “Uh, yeah… That’s Cue-Thirty-Two-Sixty-Three. He’s my roommate. Kind of a loner—doesn’t talk much. How’d you end up with Six-Six-Sig?”

“He showed up in my dimension yesterday,” she says. “Why is everyone so afraid of him? I don’t get it.”

“Well, he’s evil in ways you wouldn’t expect. He’s the Rick other Ricks—they go to him for weapons and stuff. Ones that destroy _ universes. _ He knows how to find ‘em ‘cause he thinks different.”

“Six-Six-Sig’s pretty much just a salesman—but, like,” B-291 makes a frustrated sound, “he doesn’t care who he sells to. There are really bad Ricks out there, but even they don’t know where to find half the crazy shit he does. He makes them _ more _ evil.”

Morty chews on her lip and stares at N-66ς’s back. She’s starting to realize the depth of his reputation; even here in this city of gods, his name inspires terror. In a sick way, it makes her preen that he chose her out of all Mortys to stand at his side, but she doesn’t know if that puts her in more danger. “Then why is that nice Rick talking to him?”

“Who—Zeta-Seven? I dunno. He’s not buying weapons or anything. Zeta-Seven can’t—he doesn’t destroy anything.”

“Zeta-Seven’s too nice to be a Rick,” O-λ01 interjects. “But don’t tell him that; it depresses him. For some reason, he wants to be like them.”

“He shouldn’t,” B-291 says.

“No, he shouldn’t,” O-λ01 agrees. “Ricks are—they’re assholes.”

They stand in silence for several moments until N-66ς calls for Morty.

B-291 places a hand on her shoulder and leans down to her ear. “You’re really—y-y-you’re rare, you know? Just the sort of thing he sells. You should be careful. If there wasn’t already a devil, he’d be it.”

“Okay. Um, thanks for the advice, I guess.” Unsettled, she turns away. “Bye.”

“Wait,” O-λ01 calls. He wrings his hands, keeping his gaze on his feet. “Can… can I see ‘em really quick?”

It doesn’t take Morty long to work out his meaning. She scowls and marches away. “Jeez! Go jerk off already.”


	5. Off-White Motel Sheets

_ Friday, October 24, 2014 _

It’s late afternoon when T-7ϕ80 stops by to discuss the J-proteins. N-66ς is between projects—waiting on the payment so he can move on that geneto-accelerator—so he’s three and a half hours into a sophisticated pain-management medication he never intended to create for a Rick with stage-IIIB liver cancer.

He hasn’t indulged in something this tame for decades, but Ω-209 vouched for him in his fifties when he was arrested for conspiracy to commit bio-multiplicative slavery. Back then, he lacked the knowledge to cover his tracks _ and _ synthesize a paradigm that didn’t disintegrate into ruin within seconds of birth.

He was a fucking failure—all words and no action. But things are different now.

When neon green flares blindingly in the cramped garage with the distinctive churning of a portal, Rick palms the laser pistol in his lab coat out of habit. On previous worlds, he received a great number of visitors, always for business but not always companionable. He slips that same hand into his pocket with nonchalance when T-7ϕ80 appears by himself.

He could never be friends with himself on principle, but there are certain Ricks with whom he has a good rapport. This generic-looking Citadel guard is one of the few. They have just enough time to exchange stilted greetings and touch on the impending transaction when the door swings open, revealing his bright-eyed, sweaty Morty, who’s imprinting on him at the speed of light.

On the surface, Morty’s adjustment has been swift and near-seamless over the past couple days. He suspects she has stuffed her issues with her previous Rick into a compartment for later fallout. There’s a full bottle of Jack waiting for that day.

“Rick, I’m home.” Her eyes land on the other Rick, and she falters, appearing struck with bashfulness by the way she presses against the closed door and takes an interest in her shoes.

“She’s so fucking excited to see you, Sig.” T-7ϕ80 leers at Morty. “I bet you ran the who_-oouu-_le way, huh? Couldn’t wait to see Grandpa Rick?”

“Um…” Morty’s hand finds its way into her hair, and she gazes back at him under her lashes. “Hi.”

“Hey. I’m Tee-Seven-Phi-Eighty. We met yesterday.”

“I remember. I’m Eff-Two-Delta-Ninety-Sss… Seven.”

“Ninety-Six,” Rick corrects in what he knows will become autopilot. He flips the capped vial of J-proteins in one antsy hand. “He knows, Morty. How do you think he got here?”

“Oh. Oops…” Morty giggles behind her hand.

He sets the vial on the workbench hard enough to regain the other Rick’s attention. “Morty, wait outside. I’ll co_-oouuh-_me get you when we’re done here.”

“Okay, Grandpa Rick.” She spins around and leaves them. The door snaps shut behind her.

“So, uh, yeah, we kind of touched on the price yesterday,” Rick begins, “but how does ten-point-two million—”

“—Your Morty wants you to fuck her.”

With a neutral expression, he closes his mouth in a click of teeth. “Yeah? What makes you say that?”

“Because she wants me to fuck her.” T-7ϕ80 flashes a sizable stack of bills. “Look, I’ll still buy the J-proteins, but I’m skipping the coy bullshit. How much for your Morty? Give me a number I can work with ‘cause we both know she’s blue tier at best.”

“You want to buy my Morty… because you want to fuck her?”

“Yep.”

“And, if you’re wrong a_-auhh-_bout her—what? You’re going to force her? Refund her? I don’t take refunds.”

T-7ϕ80 laughs, harsh and loud. “You seriously think I can’t read the body language of a horny fifteen year old? She wants a thick, meaty sandwich for dinner. You in?”

Rick crosses his arms over his chest. His stool creaks as he swivels back and forth on it. Oh, yeah, he noticed. There’s nothing subtle about a horny fifteen-year-old girl. But noticing and acknowledging are two very, very different things, and Morty isn’t the only person who compartmentalizes problems for later.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it, Sig. _ The Rick-kind Herald _ did this controversial survey about a year ago. Seventy-two percent of interviewed Ricks said they’d fuck their Mortys if they were into it. Sixty-four percent of those Ricks said they’d prefer a girl Morty but weren’t picky. Man, the Mortys freaked.”

“Yeah, I heard.” It has crossed his mind once or twice; sex sells and all that. As a businessman, he explores all avenues, always chasing the next schmeckle. There’s no room for morals or planetary mindsets at the pinnacle. “So… why would I sell her to you when I could sell her to everyone?”

“Whoops. I guess you owe me the first night gratis for giving you the idea, huh?”

Rick narrows his eyes. “You don’t actually want to keep her.”

“Already got a Morty—Citadel-issued. Can’t give him back, so_-oouh…” _ T-7ϕ80 waves his hand to complete his sentence.

“Whatever. But I’m gonna—I’m supervising.”

“Obviously, you fuckin’ pervert.”

* * *

* * *

T-7ϕ80 books them a room on 12-ʜƚɿɒƎ, one of several thousand “off” versions of Earth. This is where Rick Mortys and Morty Ricks live—where the abominations spawn. Here, young is old, death is birth, and the legal drinking age is twelve years old. Manners are considered rude, white is black, the sky is grass—

“Zehcnas Kcir er’uoy?” asks the desk assistant at nnI ʞɔɒઘ. The blacks of her eyes unnerve him; she looks downright possessed with white pupils. She’s probably thinking the same thing about him.

“Pey,” N-66ς responds, stifling a burp into his fist. “DI deen?”

“Yako s’taht, on. Wonk ot deen I tahw em sllet retupmoc eht. Tnemom eno.”

Morty tugs his sleeve. “Why are we here, Grandpa Rick?”

“Business.” Ignoring the look the assistant shoots them, Rick accepts the key she slides across to him. “Uoy knaht.”

He avoids these mirrored worlds for the arbitrary ridiculousness alone. Just because someone tells you you’re a child, that doesn’t reverse what a shitload of time has done to your knees and back. Also, it’s impossible to buy liquor at seventy years old because he’s technically seven… or something? And he’ll be seventeen by his next birthday? God, he hates this place.

He wonders if T-7ϕ80 chose it for the sick irony: that, here, Morty is “older” than them.

When he unlocks the door to their room and leads Morty inside, he discovers that some things are universal, such as the musty scent of a shitty motel room and the off-white color of the sheets—sheets on which his granddaughter is about to lose her virginity to an alternate version of himself.

Rick finishes the last of the whiskey from his flask. A pair of armchairs beckon across the room, and he makes himself comfortable in one of them. Morty perches on the edge of the bed and stares back at him in expectant silence.

She’s blushing like she’s picturing what’s coming, but he knows whatever she’s thinking isn’t anywhere close to reality. Or maybe not. He doesn’t know how depraved the little Rickophile really is.

“Rick,” Morty begins with a tremor to her voice and a squirm in her thighs that he tries to ignore. She fingers the rumpled bedspread and finds a stray thread to pick at. “Um. I…”

Whatever she’s going to say is interrupted when T-7ϕ80 shoulders the door open with an armful of brown paper bags that clink like glass on glass. He drops them on the bed behind Morty, who turns her torso to watch, and he unloads the burden, comprising two bottles of ice-cold vodka, a twelve pack of beer, a ribbon-tied carafe of yurnigastica, and two tumblers.

“Classy.” As Rick leans forward, he feigns indifference, but he hasn’t had yurnigastica in at least seven years. It’s one of those rare alcohols that you have to know the family to get, and he’s been on bad terms with their entire planet since he split their moon—their primordial deity Yurni—in half. It only exists in Dimension U4520, and those fuckers _ know _ it. “Where’d you get the moon juice?”

“Eh. Called in a favor.”

T-7ϕ80 pours a generous amount of yurnigastica into the tumblers and brings one over to Rick, who downs the entire glass in one go. It burns a trail down his esophagus and hits him like the sweetest of concussions. His mind and vision swim in the aftertaste of caramelized almonds, and a pool of lava settles at his core.

“Ho-hhhho—_holy shit, _ that’s the stuff,” he breathes, sinking back in his armchair and staring at the pock-marked ceiling with too-wide eyes. He can count the tiny holes with his temporary hyper-focused vision. Somewhere in the distance, he hears T-7ϕ80 ask, “Want a taste, Morty? C’mere.”

The contents of the room lurch and spin as he swings his gaze downward and blinks in slow motion. Morty follows his example by chugging the entire glass. She sucks her cheeks in, makes a gagging noise, and collapses into dead weight against T-7ϕ80, who slings an arm around her waist to pull her closer.

She slurs something indecipherable.

Rick licks his lips as his buzz fades several minutes later. Yurnigastica is all the fun and none of the morning-after hell of drinking, so its effects wear off quickly. He watches T-7ϕ80 uncap the vodka, steady the tumbler in Morty’s loose grip, and pour a few fingers’ worth.

The vodka, of course, is a different story.

“You’re as ba_-auugh-_ckwards as this fucking planet,” Rick criticizes, wiping drool off his chin. He’s not even sure why he cares enough to make a comment. “Start her off with a beer.”

“Fuck off, Grandpa. She’s my Morty tonight.”

Morty can’t seem to hold on to the glass with slackened fingers, so T-7ϕ80 reclaims it from her hand and swallows a mouthful. She soon rejoins them in the land of the sober and appears to realize that she’s half-straddling a Rick’s lap. She opens and closes her mouth until she settles on a panicked, “Rick, what… what’s happening?”

Rick makes eye contact with her and thinks back to when he said her Rick was dead. This isn’t the same thing, but he arranges his face into similar indifference. He finds that awkward things are delivered easier when he distances himself from them. “Phi’s going to fuck you while I watch.”

* * *

* * *

T-7ϕ80 is radiating enough body heat to make Morty sweat, and his arm is like a safety bar across her back, keeping her molded to his chest. His Citadel uniform smells clean—like fresh dryer sheets out of the package—with a hint of booze, and a faint aftershave lingers at his collarbone, right about where her nose is. His fingers trace little circles into her left hip, and, unable to comprehend the situation, she reaches back to touch the steady pulse in his wrist.

He’s going to fuck her?

_ He’s gonna fuck me, _ she thinks. The same sickness that makes her shy around her grandfather has stolen her voice. Her face is hot with a blush, and sudden lightheadedness sways her head. She’s hyper-aware of N-66ς’s eyes on her back. _ And Rick’s gonna watch. _

T-7ϕ80 drains the glass of vodka, smacks his lips, and sets it aside. His hand wraps around her neck, and his thumb tilts her chin until she’s looking up at him. Her heart flutters at the sight of his crooked smile. She doesn’t know him very well, but that _ face _ with that _ smile _ does things to her. He looks exactly like her old Rick.

“You watch porn, Morty?”

Morty is too embarrassed to answer—but, at the same time, she’s talking to both Ricks in the room. She wants N-66ς to know she’s not a naïve little kid, that she watches disgusting pornography and thinks about the taste of his skin while eating alien mind-reading ice cream. Even so, it feels like the hardest thing in the world to peel back her lips and admit to it. “Sometimes… on Daddy’s laptop, um, when he’s not home.”

“Yeah?” T-7ϕ80 strokes the line of her jaw, and she leans into the hypnotic motion, hit with a surge of affection. His thumb is calloused, but she loves the way it catches on her skin. As he scoots back on the bed, bringing her with him, he pushes the bottles and cans of alcohol aside, and he reclines on the pillows. “What’s your kink, sweetie?”

Her old Rick called her that. She covers her warm face with both hands. “I can’t… I’m too embarrassed.”

Morty is guided backward to lie on this Rick’s thighs. She uncovers her eyes to stare at the ceiling as T-7ϕ80 spreads her legs and pulls her closer until his torso is pressed right up against her damp crotch. Her feet touch the headboard under the pillows. An upside-down N-66ς enters the top edge of her vision and reaches for the unopened bottle of vodka near her left ear.

Her voice comes out in a pathetic whine. “Riiick.”

N-66ς uncaps the bottle, drinks from it, and wipes his mouth. He leans over her, casting her in his shadow. “What is it, Mo_-oour-_rty?”

“I’m shy…”

“Oh, yeah?” His expression remains neutral, but his fingers card through her strands. Affection grips her once again, this time stronger. She whimpers, snagging his hand and nuzzling it with her cheek to convey even a fraction of the feelings she has for him.

“God_damn, _ she’s cute,” T-7ϕ80 huffs as he peels her shirt upward. Modesty compels Morty to shoot upright and stop him, but he swats her hands away and exposes her midriff to the cool air in one smooth motion. He leaves the fabric wadded up under her breasts. Mollified, she sinks back down and covers her face again.

A yelp escapes her when something cold hits her navel like the tip of a knife, and her body gives an involuntary jerk. Liquid splashes her shirt and jeans, and she’s overcome with the stench of vodka. T-7ϕ80 holds her down with a hand under her breasts and pours the vodka into her concave belly button. It overflows and runs down her sides in rivulets. In an impressive display of flexibility, he leans down and slurps it up.

She stifles her moan when his lips attach to her skin, but she can’t stop her hips from arching. His tongue chases the last few drops and raises gooseflesh. Dazed, she peeks at upside-down N-66ς, who has taken a seat at the foot of the bed. He’s drinking heavily, having already guzzled a third of the bottle. But he’s still watching.

She wants to reach for him. She wants his hands in her hair and his lips on hers. God, she stupidly _ aches. _

“Wha_-auugh-_t’s your kink, Morty?” T-7ϕ80 repeats.

Morty hesitates, maintaining eye contact with N-66ς, who raises his brow at her. She’s starting to associate that expression with some of her most mortifying moments. “I like, um… d-d-doggy style, I guess…”

“Huh. Kind of tame, but all right.” He lets her drop to the bed and flips her over before she can react.

On her hands and knees, Morty finds her face pressed into the blanket as T-7ϕ80 kneels between her legs and squashes his bony groin against her backside. His languid thrusts jostle her forward, and she fumbles to keep from collapsing. Her pulse throbs in her ears as arousal zings through her pelvis.

T-7ϕ80 leans down to her ear while his thumbs circle her prominent hip bones and inch inward. She squirms, ticklish and wanting. “What about double penetration? Or maybe you’d like to suck your Rick off while I pound your hungry little pussy from behind?”

Choking on a gasp at the lewd words, she finds N-66ς’s lab coat with her wandering hand and claims a handful to anchor herself. The other Rick is hard against her. She feels his cock twitching, straining in his trousers. She imagines he’s desperate to be inside her. Memories of half-forgotten pornos help her envision it.

But Morty thinks she’ll pass out before that happens. Her vision is blurry, and she can’t catch her breath. Her heart is racing like it’s about to give out. She’s too weak to hold herself up—so she doesn’t.

T-7ϕ80 pulls away from her, leaving her crumpled and chilled without his overwhelming body heat draped over her back. She murmurs in protest, twisting around to follow him, but her voice dies in her throat when he unzips his pants.

Morty has seen plenty of dicks in pornography, but this is _ Rick’s. _ It’s flushed red, thick, and wrapped with veins. As intimidating as it looks, she’s enthralled. T-7ϕ80 wraps his hand around the shaft, strokes upward, gives a complicated twist of his wrist, and pumps back down the impressive length.

He touches himself in front of her without a hint of shame in his half-lidded expression.

After a few dry strokes, he leaks clear fluid, which he smears across his palm and uses to slick up his cock. Her mouth goes dry at the wet sounds and the blissful look on his face. Morty spots a few more beads of pre-cum and moves on impulse. Trembling, she places her hands on his legs, leans down in a spill of hair, and licks the tiny slit clean. While she doesn’t love the salty flavor, she experiences a naughty thrill from the noise that leaves him.

“Y-you want—you wanna suck it a little?” T-7ϕ80 sounds out of breath, like she took it directly from his lungs.

She wondered for years what it was like to do this, watched it in a thousand different ways. The technique looks simple enough, like enjoying a never-melting ice pop. What she didn’t account for was how draining it was, and she hasn’t even started. She feels like she needs to sleep, but the throbbing between her thighs beats like a second heartbeat, keeping her alert and sensitive. The paradox terrifies her; she has never felt like this before.

Behind her, Morty hears N-66ς take yet another long swig. She wonders if he’s as hard as this Rick—hard for _ her. _ Is he jealous, having second thoughts about sharing her? Does he wish she’s kneeling between his legs instead? She makes her decision, inspired by the reactions she may get from him if she tries hard enough.

“Okay,” she mumbles, pushing errant strands behind her ears. She makes herself comfortable and feels him gather her hair in his hands to hold it out of the way—just like in those filthy videos.

The tip of his cock is slick with another gush of fluid. T-7ϕ80 holds it steady at the base with one hand, but it still twitches as she lowers her head and blows out a quiet sigh. She puckers her lips and kisses it. Three kisses later, her lips are smeared with his pre-cum like lip gloss.

Morty licks her lips and glances up at T-7ϕ80, who looks so serious, so completely focused on her. He strokes her cheek with one crooked finger and urges her back down with the hand buried in her hair. She takes the hint and parts her mouth to let him inside inch by inch. Her tongue darts along his girth as the head of his cock glides across her palate. She tightens around him like a seal and makes an obscene slurping noise without meaning to.

Embarrassed, she utters a distressed sound and tries to pull away, but T-7ϕ80 murmurs something in encouragement, holding her in place.

N-66ς drinks.

Morty gets the hang of it once she bobs her head. She sinks down, swallowing as much of his cock as she can, and pulls off him with hollowed cheeks. When she remembers, she uses her tongue to play with him and probe at his slit. Sometimes, she tilts her head to the side and lets it bump the inside of her cheek. 

Her jaw hurts.

_ He’s so big, _ she thinks, delirious.

“Just like that, Morty,” T-7ϕ80 babbles in a husky rasp. “That’s so_—mm, _ that’s it. Y-y-you’re such a good girl, sucking my cock like you’re starving—like you’re so hungry for m-my cum. Gonna fill your stomach with it, Morty. Gonna make you—y-y-you’re gonna be tasting me for weeks.”

This Rick’s filthy mouth turns her on. Unable to resist, she shoves her hand down her jeans and panties and finds her clit with a practiced touch. If her Rick is still watching, he has a perfect view.

“Nnnh, gonna… gonna _ come,” _ T-7ϕ80 hisses between his teeth. “Goddamn motherfucking_—yesss.” _

Morty squeals when warm cum—salty and so, so bitter—spurts across her tongue. She strains against the hand in her hair, but he holds her in an iron grip, emptying himself down her throat with three more jerks of his hips. She gags hard on the viscous flow and reluctantly swallows it down until he releases her, letting the rest drip out of the corners of her downturned mouth.

She coughs into her fist, grimacing, and swipes the back of her arm across her lips to clean the mess.

“What, blew your one load for the week down her throat?” N-66ς’s voice is low and ambiguous, but its guttural edge raises the fine hairs on Morty’s neck. “Thought you wanted to fuck her.”

“Ehhh. This little girl won’t be happy with anyone but you.” T-7ϕ80 tucks himself back into his pants and zips up. “You should probably do it first. You know, get it over with.”

“How fucking altruistic of you.”

“Yep. You’re we_-eugh-_lcome. Aren’t you grateful I’m here to open this dialog for you?”

While they trade snide comments, Morty pulls her hand out of her jeans and considers her pruned, slick fingers. She didn’t come, but the Ricks seem done with her. It’s disappointing, but she’s not one to whine over a lost orgasm, one in a hundred she’ll have over the course of a month.

Just as she’s about to wipe them on her jeans, T-7ϕ80 grabs her wrist and sucks her fingers into his mouth. Her eyes flutter at the sensation of his tongue curling around each digit. The gentle suction of his mouth goes straight to her clit, and she understands, just a little, why he loved her mouth on his dick. The visual alone is enough to reignite her flagging arousal.

“Jesus, she tastes sweet,” T-7ϕ80 groans when he pulls away. He checks his watch. “Wanna eat her out so bad, but there’s just no fucking time. Let’s get her off really quick, then I need to head back to the Citadel.”

Morty’s breath hitches at the suggestion and catches in her throat when T-7ϕ80 swings his legs off the bed and stands. He snakes his arms under her armpits and lifts her like she weighs nothing.

N-66ς, as aloof as can be, is lounging on the edge of the bed, the nearly empty bottle of vodka discarded nearby like the dregs can’t entice him. He doesn’t react when Morty lands on his lap and is shoved forward until there’s no space between their bodies. She trembles at the erection trapped under her thigh and shifts, skimming her nose along his collarbone and the masculine scent hovering there.

“You wanna fuck Grandpa, Morty?” T-7ϕ80 asks into her hair as he lifts her and angles her downward. He rolls her hips, forcing her to grind down on her Rick. “You wanna ride En-Six-Six-Sigma?”

Her exhale stutters on the way out. She reaches up to wrap her arms around N-66ς’s neck and cling to him.

“Tell him you want his cock inside you.”

“Mmf… R-Rick, I want—” Morty’s words die when T-7ϕ80 unbuttons and unzips her jeans. He yanks her shoes off and works the fabric down her narrow hips, leaving her in her soaked panties, shirt, and socks. She sags against N-66ς and lets them manipulate her body.

“What do you want, Morty?” T-7ϕ80 reaches around her to cup her small breasts through her shirt. His thumbs find the hard points of her nipples.

Morty grinds along her Rick’s bulge with a cry. She can’t speak; she can only hold on and try not to get swept away by her own emotions.

N-66ς finally makes a sound—he grits his teeth. And then he reaches down to unzip his pants with a growled, _ “Goddamn it.” _

“There it is.” T-7ϕ80 snickers with a cruel lilt.

“Shut the fuck up, Phi, and back the fuck off.” With that, N-66ς reaches between their bodies to hook a finger in her panties and pull them to the side, exposing her quivering flesh. He guides his cock along her folds, parting them and smearing his pre-cum into her own juices.

Morty’s abdomen, pooling with liquid heat, jerks in an involuntary spasm at the intimate sensation of his velvety length inching down to her throbbing hole. She uses the last of her strength to lift her body and give him more room to work, and her fingers claw his lab coat. She’s panting, heaving, so horny that she can’t think about anything but how far away he is from sinking inside her.

“Rick,” she pleads in mindless yearning. _ “Riiick.” _

N-66ς ignores her and continues at his crawling pace, rubbing up and down her pussy with the head of his cock. He circles her clit with it, then slides back down to her untouched entrance. There, he pauses for a long moment before nudging it.

Morty should be embarrassed about her breathy sounds, but, right now, she doesn’t care. She focuses on the burn of her skin stretching to accommodate his girth, impossibly large to her limited senses. She knows what it looks like, but it seems so much bigger when she can’t see it.

He stretches her a little—and pulls back out and rubs her clit. It becomes a smooth repetition, and it builds her orgasm with each centimeter he dares to put into her.

She thinks he’ll finally put the head inside her if she can hold out long enough, but she doesn’t know how to control it, to push it back. When she comes, she wails his name and digs her fingernails into his shoulders. She comes _ hard, _ harder than she ever has, and she’s a rag doll by the time it passes.

N-66ς pants in her ear. His hard cock flexes against her, but he does nothing with it. Then the arousal fades like a dream, leaving her with the cold reality of her actions. This is wrong. What did her Rick just make her do with this other Rick? What does this make her? How will this change things? Will he tell Mom? _ Will he leave? _

It’s too much for her to handle all at once. She got what she wanted, but she thinks the price may be too high. The tears well up in her eyes, and she cries over the uncertain future.

“Aaand… there’s another reason I didn’t buy her from you,” T-7ϕ80 mutters to N-66ς before opening up a portal. “Yeah, good luck with that. I’ll let you keep all the booze; think you’ll need it. Later.”

Morty cries so hard that she hiccups in between her sobs, and N-66ς stuffs his erection back into his pants with a hiss. He shifts her onto the bed, gathers up the wayward bottles and cans, and locates her discarded jeans and shoes. With a flare of green, he shoots his portal gun into the wall and leads her out of the motel room by her wrist.


	6. Liethisday

Crying Mortys aren’t uncommon in Rick Sanchez’s world because he’s usually the reason for the waterworks. His twenty-ninth Morty burst into tears over the smallest of conflicts and stressors before an undetected parasite ate him alive overnight.

But the circumstances are very different this time; he can’t comfort this Morty. Sure, he _ could _ give her a hug or pat her head, but he thinks he’s touched her enough for one night. And he’s a little too phlegmatic for platitudes right now. All he can do is try to salvage the situation by appealing to her other strongest drive: intrigue.

N-66ς hears Morty sniffling as she puts her jeans back on, and he selects a random box of F-2δ96’s inventions from the shelves. At the workbench, he digs through the contents, rips parts out of the devices, and tinkers with abandon.

It starts out looking like a cube with claws. A toolbox provides a TIG welder, so he adds aluminum coils and four pencil-thin cylinders. A power source, motherboard, control panel, and ultraviolet laser diode follow. With a precision drill, he makes holes in the cylinders to mount a cooling unit.

It’s nothing. It probably won’t even work because the motherboard is scratched and the power supply is a cheap three-hundred watt. He doesn’t have a name or a purpose for it other than “Something” and “Make Morty Stop Crying.” The design comes out simplistic enough that it won’t intimidate her but complex enough to pique her interest about its function.

Fumbling through the disorganized toolbox and muttering to himself over the missing hex screwdriver, he almost doesn’t notice when the tool in question appears next to his arm.

Rick swivels on his stool to face Morty. Her eyes are bloodshot, but she isn’t crying anymore. She cranes her neck to look at the worthless contraption he just threw together and, as if he hadn’t just made her come with his dick, asks, “What are you making, Rick?”

Bullshit spews from his mouth—outer space and encrypted transmissions, conspiracies and intergalactic postal services disguised as “blorgar” caterers. He makes up some words because he’s flustered and he drank too much. Relinquishing the stool, he thrusts the screwdriver and a handful of screws at her. “Here, finish it up for me.”

She claims his seat, and her tongue pokes out in concentration. While she busies herself with securing the fan, the next few weeks play out in front of Rick’s eyes.

After a good night’s sleep, Morty gets a little better and gains the confidence to come back for more the next time her hormones strike. Either he teases her like he did tonight, or he gives her the full penetrative sex—love, probably, in her mind—she thinks she needs to validate her feelings.

If he teases, she goes through a perpetual cycle of addiction and self-loathing, strange highs and bad lows, always wanting more but hating herself for craving it. If he fucks her, she loves it and feels special for a while before plummeting into a deep, dark depression when reality sinks in.

She can’t tell people about her “boyfriend,” go out on dates like a normal teenager, or put a tidy label on what they have. The equivalent of senior prom is Grandparents’ Day, so she wears a low-cut dress to entice him while he drinks himself into a whiskey dick. There’s no marriage, children, or growing old together in her future. Romance and happily ever afters aren’t the rewards for fucking this seventy-year-old bastard.

If he rejects her, he shoves her into a life of skewed self-image, potential substance abuse, and relationships with abusive pricks who remind her of him. She slips up and calls one of them “Rick” during sex, leading to fights and accusations, a half-empty beer bottle shattered against the wall and a fist through the television screen. Neighbors call the cops, and she has to escape through a door instead of a portal. Maybe he isn’t around anymore to make it better with a nostalgic adventure.

Or—and this is an enormous “or,” against all odds—she convinces herself that it’s perfectly normal, well-adjusted behavior to have a sexual relationship with an alternate version of her dead grandfather. She worships his coattails, diving for the scraps of false affection he tosses over his shoulder while he _ takes and takes and takes. _

Morty yawns and rubs her eyes. A quick glance at his micro-computer informs him it’s nearing midnight, so he has mercy on her by opening a portal to her bedroom. She murmurs in good-night and falls asleep on top of the bedcovers.

* * *

* * *

_ Saturday, October 25, 2014 _

The Prastiverian 45-Series geneto-accelerator, named for the now-extinct race that invented it, resembles a toaster oven. Iridescent trunderonite, a sulfate equivalent not unlike chalcanthite—but, at the same time, possessing a composition too foreign and insoluble to compare—comprises the core, which shrinks with every use. One day, the machine will cease to function. Nine out of ten times, it’s a terrible investment.

The Prastiverians were working on the 55-Series when civil war broke out between their castes; traditionalists insisted that the resources needed to mass-produce this powerful machine were slated for depletion and that no amount of money in the universe could soften the loss of their epochal striations, both metaphorical and literal.

Ironically, the nuclear fallout destroyed every trace of life and crumbled those precious minerals into dust.

For this reason, N-66ς can’t walk into any tech store, slap down a wad of cash, and call it done. It only made his search harder that a radical group known as Extraterrestrials on Watch appealed to the Galactic Federation on behalf of this “extinct in the wild” mineral, so possessing a Prastiverian geneto-accelerator is a class-A felony—the butter to any Rick’s bread. Last he checked, the black market Glormoquar Outlet had one with a fully intact core in stock, and he has funneled plenty of funds to keep it that way until he closes the deal.

That morning, he decides having some coffee with his whiskey will prepare him for the imminent haggling. Beth, bright-eyed even at eight o’clock, has already set a place for him at the kitchen table. She’s cooking eggs, bacon, and pancakes. That this is the same person who first answered the door for him is nothing short of spectacular.

Beth F-2δ96 is more talented than his last couple Beths. The food smells delicious, but Rick’s stomach roils with his hangover. He slumps at the table with an exaggerated groan.

“You look like crap.” She scoops a little of everything onto his plate. Breakfast has become a ritual between the two of them; in a household of late-risers, they share the morning serenity. She knows he can’t stomach much this early, but that doesn’t stop her from preparing enough food in case he works up an appetite. A half-full cup of black coffee joins his plate, and he empties his flask into it.

“Love you, too, honey.” He takes a sip of the scalding liquid. There’s a novelty to being the father to this woman—even now, his sixty-second retry. Although his mind isn’t deteriorated enough to trick him into mentally adopting her, he can appreciate the simple things, like homemade meals and domestic banter.

Beth looks far too pleased by his wording, borne of sarcasm and not actual feelings of love. But he lacks the motivation to burst her bubble.

“So, how was your night?” she asks. “I didn’t see much of you before you and Morty left.”

Rick maintains his practiced neutral. “Just fine. Took her to Blips and Chitz for a few hours.”

She sits opposite him with her own plate and mug and arches an eyebrow. “‘Blips and Chitz’?”

“Interga_-auugh-_lactic arcade specializing in extrasensory virtual reality, autassassinophilia, alien junk food, and carnival-tier consolation prizes.”

“Ah.”

Seconds pass, and they blink at each other.

“I’m not joking,” he adds.

“I didn’t think you were.” Beth spears a forkful of eggs and chews with deliberation. She swallows it down with some coffee. “Assuming my etymology isn’t too rusty, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you were every bit the doting, concerned grandfather and kept Morty far away from the ‘risk of death’ games.”

“Yep.” Rick chances a bite of bacon. “Oh, but I slipped up and let her try some flanderqips. The chances are relatively low, but, if she gains ten po_-ouu-_unds in the next two days, she may have an egg sac hooked inside her small intestine; it becomes engorged when it’s about to hatch. I’ll stand by to give her a total proctocolectomy.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Again, I’m not joking.” He drains the last of his coffee, stands from his chair, and opens a portal. “Thanks for breakfast. Later.”

* * *

* * *

Remnants of a nonsensical dream slip through Morty’s mind as she climbs out of bed and gathers clean clothing for a much-needed shower. Eleven hours of comatose sleep have left her groggy. Under the hot spray, she spends an extra twenty minutes with T-7ϕ80’s gruff voice in her ear as she touches herself.

_ “You wanna fuck Grandpa, Morty? You wanna ride En-Six-Six-Sigma?” _

Morty covers her mouth with her palm when she comes—more as a reflex than to muffle her silent orgasm. It’s nothing special compared to the one she had with N-66ς, more of a tickle than anything else, and the pleasure fades within seconds. Leaning against the cool tile, she suffers an unpleasant twinge in her heart.

Unwilling to relive her tears, she dries off, dresses, brushes her teeth, and combs her hair. Her legs and armpits are freshly shaven from her time in the shower. She applies a little makeup and sprays herself with Summer’s “Dark Kiss” perfume for good measure. The teenager in the mirror looks back to her normal self.

_ Rick, _ she thinks, bursting with so much affection that she feels like it’ll spill out of her.

Summer is standing in her way when she collects her dirty clothes and leaves the bathroom in a lovesick fog.

“Finally,” her sister mutters, shoving past her. “Done beating off in here?”

“Yes,” Morty chirps, unhearing, through a mental cadence of _ Rick, Rick, Rick. _ She dumps her clothes in her bedroom hamper and rushes downstairs to the living room. A quick glance at the couch tells her that he’s not watching television with Dad, so she heads for the garage door and flings it open—on silent emptiness.

“Looking for Rick, kiddo?” Dad asks from his armchair. “Haven’t seen him all morning.”

Disappointment wells up like acid in Morty’s throat as she closes the door and trudges to the couch, where Scrumptious is curled up in a slumbering ball of orange.

“Gee, don’t look too excited about spending time with me instead of him.”

She murmurs an apology and strokes her kitten’s fur. He reacts to her touch by stretching out his limbs in feline bliss before falling back asleep in a new position. His antics tug at her frown but fail to cheer her up, so she looks at the television screen, tuned into a competitive baking show.

“What’s for lunch?” she asks, punctuated by a rumble of her stomach.

“Your mom’s whipping up some burgers right now. Why don’t you go help her?”

“Okay.”

In the kitchen, Mom glances up from the frying patties when she approaches. “Someone slept well. I didn’t think you’d wake up in time for lunch.”

Morty stands on her tiptoes to look at the food and nearly drools. She loves homemade cheeseburgers. “Yeah, I was really tired last night. Um, can I help?”

“You can grab the ketchup and stuff from the fridge. These are almost done.”

“Honey, I hope you’re not pressing those with the spatula,” Dad calls through the doorway. “Let them cook; you’re smashing all the flavor out when you do that.”

Mom mutters something derisive under her breath. “You never complained about my ‘flavorless’ burgers before.”

“Well, that was before I realized you’ve been doing it wrong.”

Morty flinches when Mom makes a point to aggressively smash the patties with the spatula. She opens the jar of pickles and fishes one out to cut into chips on a cutting board.

“Since you’re _ so _ convinced that watching cooking shows all day makes you a culinary savant, why don’t you do the cooking from now on?”

“I would if you didn’t bite my head off every time I try to help!”

_ “Sabotage, _ Jerry: That’s your idea of helping. You pick at every little thing I do because I’m not cutting the potatoes right or making my spaghetti sauce from scratch—or preparing a five-fucking-course dinner like they do on TV!”

Morty hates listening to their tireless arguments. She quickly cuts two more pickles and slinks away to the kitchen door, intent on fleeing back to her room until the food is done.

“Morticia,” comes her mother’s stern voice, derailing her escape. Morty stifles a sigh and turns around. Mom’s profile is apathetic despite the fight she just had with Dad. “Grab the tomatoes and cut them into slices for me.”

Morty does as she’s told and rinses pickle juice off the cutting board. Sitting at the kitchen table, she holds the tomato still as she cuts it into uneven pieces.

“You’re spending a lot of time with Rick.”

She pauses, knife hovering over the mangled tomato. Anxiety and shame collide in a sense of déjà vu as she recalls hearing similar words once before.

_ “You spend too much time with him.” _

“I can’t stand the thought of him leaving again because of…” Mom trails off, voice tight with emotion. She clears her throat and lowers her pitch. “Just tell me the truth: Will it be a problem?”

Morty tries not to think about last night. The lie tastes sour in her mouth, and she almost chokes on it. “I promise it’s not like that.”

Mom brings the cooked patties over to the table on a plate. When she leans forward, her nostrils flare, and the look in her eyes is nothing short of pained. “Makeup and perfume on a Saturday. Do you really think that’ll impress him? He’s seventy, Morty. Seventy. And he’s your grandfather. _ My dad. _ Why can’t you understand that like everyone else?”

“Mom,” she whimpers, “it’s… it’s not for him. I-I promise. Please believe me. It’s not gonna be a problem. He’s not—if he leaves, it’s not gonna be because of me this time. _ I promise.” _

“Okay.” But that forced smile says something else entirely, and Morty almost cries at the sight of it. She wants to beg for forgiveness and apologize and say whatever needs to be said to wipe that terrible expression off her face because she knows it _ will _ be a problem. She knows she won’t stop until Rick tells her to and that Mom has every right to worry.

She has already sucked him off. She has felt him between her legs, inches away from sinking inside her. It’s already a huge problem.

“Fine, I admit it, the food smells great.” Dad strolls in, appearing oblivious to the strained atmosphere. He’s followed by Summer. “Now, let’s eat!”

* * *

* * *

The proprietor of Glormoquar Outlet looks like a cross between Plormenii birthing waste and fruit gelatin. Its dark-blue limbs undulate in perpetual motion, and its twenty-six eyes blink independently of each other. Its inner organs jiggle around with every shuffle as it meets him at the entrance. “Rick! Rick Sanchez! I’m Yolrtvok’og. Pleased to meet you. You’re right on time.”

The point of this creature, with all its vulnerabilities on display and no claws, teeth, or other primal defenses, is to inspire nonaggression, but N-66ς rarely drops his guard. While he allows Yolrtvok’og to wrap a slimy tendril around his fingers and wrist in the crude pantomime of a handshake, he watches it closely for signs of hostility.

“How do you even know which one I am?” he asks. “A_-auu-_ny of those assholes could put on glasses and look like me.”

“I have this ocular chip.” It gestures to one of its many eyes. “Stolen prototype straight from your famed Citadel. A former guard brought it in and traded it. It tells me your dimension number, En-Six-Six-Sigma, so nice try.”

Rick chews on the inside of his cheek. Something like that would be worth a fortune to the right buyer. He can feel himself getting distracted by the numbers. “Probably still full of bugs.”

“You would think so, but I haven’t had a single issue yet—no visual glitches, freezing, or data discrepancies. It’s very impressive. But what else can I expect from a city of Rick Sanchezes?”

“Yeah? Get a lot of Ricks in here recently to test it on?”

A strange look passes across its gelatinous face before disappearing. “Er, a few. I have regulars.”

“Do you remember their dimension numbers? Clearly, you saw them.”

“That’s confidential information, En-Six-Six-Sigma, and, if you’ll pardon me, not really any of your business.”

Rick shakes himself out of it and plasters indifference over his expression. “You’re right. My business involves a little something called the Prastiverian Forty-Five-Series geneto-accelerator. Where’re you keeping it—the back?”

When he makes a beeline through the warehouse, Yolrtvok’og scrambles to follow with a grotesque _ shluck-_ing noise.

“Yes, about that—”

“—Now, I’m willing to overlook a few cosmetic scratches,” he interrupts, casting a critical eye over the shelves and displays along the way, “but, if any of the parts are bent out of place, I’m taking it out of my offer. All right?”

“All right, that’s fair, but—”

Rick comes to an abrupt halt in the back room and sniffs the air. He frowns. “So, where is it?”

“It’s straight ahead and to the right. But, Rick—”

He follows the instructions and squeezes between two cylindrical vats giving off the faint scent of lavender. Turning at the next corner past a terrarium and a crate of glowing orange vials, he finds the geneto-accelerator on a lone shelf. He puts his hand on it just as Yolrtvok’og catches up.

“Rick—”

“—I could open this up and inspect the goods, but I don’t think I need to do that to know you’re trying to fuck me right now.” His frown deepens. “Do you have olfactory receptors? Eh. Know what iridescent trunderonite smells like? It smells like impure sulfu_-urrr._ My point is it’s fucking disgusting, and you can’t hide even a whiff.”

“Y-yes,” it stammers. “I was getting to that, but you kept interrupting me. You see, uh, I have the geneto-accelerator as promised. But I’m—I’m no longer in possession of the core.”

Rick drums his fingertips on the machine in agitation. “Then you don’t really have it as promised, do you? Because I remember being reassured in our correspondence that it would come with the core fully intact.”

“I know, but… You’ve heard of EW? Extraterrestrials on Watch?”

“I even paid you a regular stipend as a security deposit. _As a courtesy._ You insisted it would be here no matter who came in looking for it.” Rick scowls, angrier than he has been in a long time. His blunt fingernails dig into the geneto-accelerator. “You can’t run a black market without integrity. Even thieves have some honor; that’s how they make a reputable business out of their crime. It’s how they get paid instead of shot through the head.”

“They’ve been cracking down on the sale of endangered species,” Yolrtvok’og babbles. “Someone leaked that I had this here, and they came for it! What do you expect me to do? They were armed. I can’t defend myself against that. I can’t defend myself against _ anything.” _

He laughs mirthlessly. “It’s like you’re begging me to kill the shit out of you.”

“I’m telling the truth!”

_ “Who’d you sell it to?” _

“A human stole it!” Yolrtvok’og screeches, reaching an octave almost too high for Rick’s ears. Its enunciation gurgles and churns like boiling water, and its organs shudder into motion like they’re caught in a frothing plunge pool. Its body hue shifts to a distressed purple. “A little human wearing yellow, blue, and white! I don’t know his name, but I often see him with you—I mean, your other selves!”

Rick narrows his eyes, whips out his laser pistol, and fires it through Yolrtvok’og’s three hearts at pulmonary eclipse. He splashes through the spray of blood toward a nearby box cutter.

* * *

* * *

Back on Earth, N-66ς glares holes into the corkboard above the workbench. His hands clutch the unsanded counter edge, and his fingers dig into the wood. He’ll have splinters to pick out later, but he’s too furious to care.

Did a Morty steal his iridescent trunderonite, or was Yolrtvok’og groping for mercy over a sale of opportunity? If it was a theft, was it calculated or random? He isn’t sure, but there’s no way to find out now.

A portal gushes to life behind him. Green flashes across the corkboard and casts his shadow over the diagram in front of him so he can’t see the neatly scribbled calculations. His hand is already on his pistol and seconds from drawing it when the intruder announces himself.

“Hi, Sigma,” comes the soft, non-threatening voice of J19ζ7. “Sorry to burst in on you like this, but I brought something.”

Rick forces his hand away from his pistol and glances over his shoulder. J19ζ7, clad in a blue checkered apron and red oven mitts, presents a tray of dark spheres stabilized on small plastic discs. He realizes, upon closer inspection, they’re confections packed with brown sprinkles.

“They’re rum balls with silken chocolate cores. They’ve got a hint of that bitter taste you like so much. I don’t like alcohol, but it mixes so well with chocolate. You’ll love them,” he gushes as he places the tray on the workbench. His smile fades when they make eye contact. “Gosh, are you okay? You look so tense.”

“That’s because I got _ fucked in the asshole _ today, and I still haven’t unclenched,” Rick says through gritted teeth. He snatches up a rum ball and bites into it as he crosses the length of the garage to the corner with the closed cabinet. It’s more delicious than he anticipates, and he finds himself momentarily knocked off-balance. He struggles to maintain his scowl while swallowing it down.

After slipping out of his oven mitts, J19ζ7 seems to mull over various responses before deciding on, “Is there anything I can do? Can I listen?”

J19ζ7 is the only Rick he’s comfortable showing his back to—the only Rick who doesn’t collect admissions and weaknesses like armor-piercing rounds—so he talks. Last night’s disaster with Morty and T-7ϕ80 has no place in this one-sided conversation, but, when he goes into colorful detail about the inert Gretandeloplasts in 5280-Fμ and Rick A-000, he expects disapproval before he detects it in that gentle frown. He raves about his failure in obtaining the geneto-accelerator and concludes that it feels _ good _ to vent his frustrations.

He can’t discuss his prospective deals with anyone else, but he’s certain J19ζ7 won’t do anything with the knowledge, no matter how narcissistic, irresponsible, and greedy it all is. Speaking it out loud makes it sound far worse than when he plans it in his head. Not for the first time, he wonders what the hell happened to him; he has come a long way from using his genius to better humanity.

_ Six-Six-Sig, _ he thinks. This caricature of a sobriquet has never made more sense.

Rick returns to the workbench and sits on the creaky stool. He rubs his pounding temples and, lost in self-reflection, misses whatever his guest says. “What?”

“I dabble in horticulture and botany,” J19ζ7 repeats, heading off in a seemingly random tangent. “Back in March, I read about this specimen called—it translates into ‘Agorigan Starfield.’ And it—um, actually, let me start over.”

His story begins with an ancient book gifted from the carnivorous-plant-like Worxizaks for investigating the cause of their drought and helping them build an irrigation system.

“The system is primitive by Earth standards, but the Worxizaks are a millennium behind in technology,” he rambles as Rick snags another rum ball from the tray. “I was afraid of introducing something too advanced—something they couldn’t fix by themselves without the right knowledge or tools. I still check on them to make sure it’s working, but…”

With the crisis averted, he turns his attention to the book, a fairy tale held together by intestine strings and written on sheets of flesh like some kind of alien _ Necronomicon. _ It tells of a fictional race called Agorigan, a word meaning “All-Mind” in Worxi. The entire race, taking the form of four flower buds on the same root system, was born of a chemical reaction in a desolate wasteland. Dreaming of the concept of perfect symmetry in their collective mind, they worshiped this intangible shape and believed, if they could help each other endure the harsh conditions of their planet long enough, they would embody symmetry at full bloom.

“It’s just a story to the Worxizaks, a way to encourage their offspring to persevere through life’s trials and tribulations and nurture societal cohesion, but _ I found it.” _ J19ζ7 meshes his fingers together and smiles like he knows Rick suddenly gives a shit about the long-winded explanation. “All stories have truth to them. This one described climate and geographical conditions that fit only one planet in Priterus: Ex-Five Gelide. It was a simple process of elimination.”

Samples of the frozen topsoil surrounding the Agorigan Starfield reveal a critical toxicity that promises to decompose the roots by the planet’s equivalent of summer, so he transplants it to his personal garden in Dimension J19ζ7. One bud has already bloomed, and, in his studies, he discovers that the growth time for each subsequent bud increases by a factor of thirteen, meaning he will never live to see the beauty of “perfect symmetry.”

“The Starfield would’ve fully bloomed around the time your Gretandeloplasts reached natural maturity. Life is funny like that, isn’t it?” Here, J19ζ7 droops in both posture and expression, a nonverbal indication that a Rick or two came along and pissed on his aspirations as they often do. “My squad, Alpha-Nine… they, um… they were a little too rough with it and killed the flower, so perfect symmetry will never be achievable, anyway.”

“Perfection is an illusion,” Rick reminds him. “Your little pla_-aaugh-_nt society dreamed up this fantasy because gamma radiation burned an unattainable shape into their ocelli. They looked at that big bright light in the sky and called it ‘god.’ It’s what cavemen do.”

“I know. But it still upset me so much that I—well, I became obsessed. I spent weeks researching a way to accelerate the development of the other buds.” J19ζ7 scuffs the toe of his shoe into the floor. “It has one use until I can save up for more components, but I haven’t, ah… haven’t used it. Not yet.”

Rick licks his messy fingers and wipes them on his lab coat. He’s salivating—not just from the rum balls, but from the prospect of saving millions of flurbos because one of his other investments is paying off right in front of him.

“I could never afford a Prastiverian Forty-Five-Series geneto-accelerator like you can, Sigma,” J19ζ7 adds with spots of color in his cheeks, “so I improvised. Would… would you like for me—I-I mean, if it’s not too presumptuous, may I help you?”

Fingers touch his sleeve, and he captures them before their skittish owner can withdraw. Rising from the stool, he pulls him closer and leans in. Their cheeks graze as he nears his ear, and J19ζ7 clutches the front of his lab coat. Seconds pass in silence as they stand with scant inches between them.

“Alpha-Nine Ricks would shit themselves if they knew your potential, Zeta.” Rick feels moist warmth fan across his neck as J19ζ7 releases the breath he was holding. There’s an undeniable tremor in that exhale, telltale of how affected he is by his words—or proximity. “But you’re too valuable to share.”

With that, he pulls back to offer a quirk of his lips and send the dazed Rick on his way.


	7. The Right Buyer

Rick leaves the garage as soon as J19ζ7’s portal blinks out of existence and finds Morty, hand halfway to the doorknob, waiting on the other side. Before she can speak, he sidesteps her and heads for the kitchen. As delicious as the rum balls are, his stomach demands real nourishment. The lingering scent in the air tells him the Smiths have already eaten lunch, confirmed by the pile of dirty dishes in the sink.

Beth, poring over her laptop at the table, looks up, perfectly attentive to his needs, as he rifles around in the refrigerator. After locating the store-brand roast beef and sharp cheddar, he closes the door and turns.

Morty hovers just outside the kitchen—out of her mother’s sight. He throws his sandwich together on two slices of Italian bread. Pinned between their stares, he prickles with irritation and rips a chunk out of his food. The girl is sending him signals with her expression, all but begging him to follow her out of Beth’s range of hearing, but he ignores her in favor of taking a seat at the table.

“We had burgers awhile ago,” Beth says. “Sorry, Dad. I didn’t know when you’d be back.”

“‘S all right,” he responds through a mouthful. “Don’t put your family’s schedule on hold for me.”

She crinkles her brow and drops her eyes to her screen like he scolded her. His irritation grows as he adds, “That wasn’t sarcasm. Seriously, don’t. I don’t know what Jerry’s been whispering from your shoulder, but I’m still capable of basic functions like fee_-euu-_ding myself.”

Her snort is downright derisive. She reaches out and touches the air beside her laptop—the reflex of a woman conditioned to down alcohol at the mention of her greatest regret. He’s almost impressed by her smooth recovery; she curls her fingers into a fist and sets it on the table like she meant to do it.

Rick jerks his chin at her laptop. “You’re pretty enthralled by something over there. Looking up ways to dispose of a body? The answer’s ‘quicklime,’ but I can get you something ten times better off-world.”

He’s speaking from experience because one of his Beths actually did it. J-523, his fifth, simmered with anger so potent that her body temperature sat a degree higher than normal. Everyday conversation annoyed her. Questions infuriated her. Humanity made her misanthropic innards clench and writhe in loathing. The clozapine had no effect, so Jerry won full custody and moved the kids into an apartment across town using the alimony and child-support checks.

The only time she rediscovered a shred of her former self was in Rick’s presence, so he took her on long trips, just the two of them. They skimmed the multiverse with frequent pit stops at Blips and Chitz when that hyper-realistic virtual surgery simulation was still in rotation. They stole, killed, ran for their lives, and made a metric fuck-ton of money, all blown on a lifetime of experiences over the course of two weeks.

On the twelfth day, Beth went big and stuck herself with a ridiculously expensive Kozgavetrite cocktail of sero-nore-dopa-glurb-feraz, contracted twelve alien STDs, suffered multiple-system failure, and spent the night in agony on a hospital gurney. For a minute and a half, her heart stopped, during which point she found the answers she sought. Meanwhile, Rick tried K-lax and let another Rick—T-7ϕ80, back when he was still a “stranger”—fuck him into the mattress for the first, second, third time, and he found the answers _ he _ sought.

The thirteenth day—

_ “I’m tired, Dad. I can’t do it anymore.” _

_ “Then don’t.” _

—he promised to take care of her kids after she and Jerry were gone. He performed his due diligence by falsifying Summer and Morty’s memories and dumping them in a dimension with a successful, unmarried Beth. The pieces didn’t fit, but he hammered them in until the edges were bent. Then he moved on.

Beth F-2δ96’s laughter is just as derisive as her snort. She’s angry, unhappy, helpless, but she’s not “J-523” enough to do anything about it. “I’ll keep that in mind. But, no, I was just thinking. We haven’t taken a vacation this year, and my paid time doesn’t roll over. What do you think of an Alaskan cruise?”

No tension hunches Beth’s shoulders. Her face is relaxed as her eyes dart across what must be a paragraph of propaganda about Alaskan cruises. She isn’t drinking even though the compulsion probably nags at the back of her mind. She wants to go on vacation, pick up where they left off when Rick F-2δ96 disappeared.

Some would call that the fifth and final stage of grief. Rick would say the scale got flipped when he disrupted the Smiths’ lives, and “acceptance” is only the beginning.

He fights the urge to reach for his flask. “Sounds cold as shit.”

“Okay, how about the Caribbean?”

“Sounds hot as shit.” Rick finishes his sandwich and brushes the crumbs off his lab coat. “Look, if it’s personal discomfort and loss of free will you’re after, I kno_-oouuh-_w a place you can go for free. And, as a bonus, you’ll come out of it with temporary pyrokinesis and heightened rectal sensitivity.”

Beth laughs. She thinks he’s joking again.

He rolls his head on his neck and tilts back in his chair so he can see Morty, who hasn’t moved from her hiding spot. Doesn’t she get bored? Someone needs to buy that kid some new video games. “Morty, wanna weigh in? Talk your mom out of a terrible idea?”

The girl shoots him a betrayed look. After a stretch of hesitation, she slinks into the kitchen and claims the chair beside him. Beth’s lightheartedness transforms into blatant suspicion, and she and Morty seem to communicate something through glances alone. Rick watches the transformation with mild interest. It doesn’t take a genius to realize there’s some friction between the two of them, but it _ does _ take a narcissist to think this blip in normalcy has anything to do with him.

* * *

* * *

Boredom grips Rick as he sits in the garage. Without his geneto-accelerator, he has to wait for J19ζ7 to return with his growth catalyst, and he already sent the pain treatment to Ω-209 for his liver cancer. His other projects are in stasis. When he’s this bored, he’ll do just about anything to alleviate it, so he dives into F-2δ96’s boxes for parts. This time, he only needs two things: crystallized xanthenite and thermal compound paste.

With something that looks like a homemade Geiger counter, he scans each item until he gets a hit on a dusty peripheral monitor. He shatters the screen, finds the crystal fragments attached to the motherboard, and pries them out with pliers. He spots a tube of thermal compound paste and a putty knife under the workbench and snatches the straight-blade screwdriver from the nearby toolbox.

Items in hand, he leaves the garage. Morty, watching television by herself, swivels around on the couch and eyes him like a neglected animal. Rick passes by her on his way to the cable box.

“What are you doing, Rick?”

“Stealing cable.” He unplugs and unscrews the box with a practiced hand and applies the heat sink and xanthenite fragments to the motherboard. With a couple swipes of the putty knife, he spreads the gooey clear substance into an even layer and pats it flat. The screws go back into their holes, plugs into theirs, and he blows the dust off the box.

“Interdimensional cable. If there’s TV in another reality, it’s on here,” he explains before she can ask. “You’re welcome.”

Rick lounges on the couch next to Morty and reaches over her to take the remote. She’s riveted as he surfs the channels: _ hOS: Human Operating Systems, Uncle Vztnorggarzfobarg Comes Home for Christmas in July, Great-Great-Great-Grandma Swap, _ and a commercial about anti-aging cream that makes you piss blood—“But it’s okay because you look thirty years younger, and who really needs both kidneys?” He takes her on a quick tour of the possibilities, each more ridiculous than the last. They stop on _ This Show Is Literally About Nothing But You’ll Watch It Anyway. _

He tears his eyes from the screen and surveys his surroundings. “Hey, where’s Jerry at? I thought he li_-iiuh-_ved in that armchair now.”

“He and Mom went to the store to get some things for dinner.”

“Summer?”

“Hmm, she met with some friends after lunch.”

“Figures. I make something awesome for the family, and nobody wants—nobody’s around to appreciate it.” Rick changes the channel until he finds _ Lost in a Parking Garage. _ “You know the great thing about interdimensional cable, Morty? Most of the time, you get exactly what the title tells you you’re gonna get. There are no flowery metaphors or imagery. If it says ‘Lost in a Parking Garage,’ you can safely assume it’s a guy lost in—”

Just as the guy in the parking garage encounters a pack of rabid dogs, his sentence dies, and he looks down at his thigh, where Morty has laid her hand. Her head is turned away, eyes glued to the screen.

“What’s going on there?”

“Mom and Dad left,” she says, scooting closer without looking at him. Her cheeks are pink. “Summer’s not here. It’s just you a-and me, Grandpa Rick.”

“So… what, you want to jerk me off where anyone can walk in and see? Y-y-you got a tracking device on your parents, Morty? Know when they’re gonna come home?”

“No.” Her flush deepens, and her fingernails rake his thigh.

Rick turns his attention back to the television. Much to his annoyance, he’s missed the ending to _ Lost in a Parking Garage. _ He flips from the commercial—flavored gasoline for sentient cars, now in dragon fruit and mashed human entrails—to a small-claims court in a dimension where nobody is capable of rambling.

_ Click. _

A guy cleans out his ear with an ice pick because the voices told him to, and Morty creeps up his inner thigh.

_ Click. _

A cool female voice introduces a new medication for cholecystitis with a “side effects include” reel of over sixty symptoms that cumulatively sound worse than the disease itself, and Morty presses her hip to his.

_ Click. Click. Click. _

Flying-car jousting. Toothpaste that makes your gums ooze pus in exchange for a brighter smile. A tribe of warrior women fighting over the privilege of disemboweling a screaming, captive man. Morty trails her fingers over the crotch of his pants and grabs a handful.

Rick grunts and tosses the remote aside. He’s getting flustered, so he copes—by babbling. “Do you know what defines a psychopath, Mo_-oour-_rty? It means I only love things that are useful to me. The only difference between Obaryian fetal castration and me is that _ I _ understand what I’m doing is really fucked up. And I’ll do it anyway.”

Morty looks up at him from under her bangs and massages him through the rough fabric.

“I’m not even your real grandpa, Morty,” he continues to berate. “You can’t turn this into a thing, like some kind of grasp for attention because Mommy and Daddy don’t love you enough—so you have to fish around in another generation to find someone who will. Y-y-y-you’re just into old guys. Y-you’re an old-man fucker, _ Morty. _ A sexual deviant. Are you happy about that?”

Undeterred, she climbs on top of him, straddling his lap, and reaches for his buckle. His head lands on the back of the couch, and he stares up at the ceiling. Metal clicks as she fumbles with his belt and loosens it. She moves down to his button and zipper.

“That other Rick wanted you to—h-he wanted you to, um, have s-sex with me,” she whispers against his neck as she works his button out. Her fingers reach for his zipper and pull it downward. “I want to.”

“Really? I can’t tell,” he shoots back out of habit. He bites down on his inner cheek when she reaches inside his pants and touches his half-hard cock through his underwear, where drops of pre-cum have already seeped into the cloth. Curious fingers stroke him, slowly coax him into hardness.

Morty presses a kiss to his Adam’s apple and steadies herself with a hand on his arm. She peppers his neck up to his jawline and back down, wrapping her lips around his skin and sucking—hard. Her long curly hair tickles him.

“Such a needy little fuck.” His eyes slip closed.

She’s trembling almost violently on top of him, telltale of how nervous she really is. His hands lie uselessly at his sides, and the television drones in the background. He knows the curtains are drawn away from the windows, allowing anyone to look inside and see them, and it turns him on more. She finds the courage to dip into his underwear and palm his cock, and, with a close-lipped exhale, he flexes in her hand.

Smearing pre-cum along his shaft, she mumbles, “Oh, jeez. It’s so wet, Rick.”

“Probably nothing compared to yo_-ouu. _ Ruined your panties already, I bet.”

Morty doesn’t dispute it. Instead, she shifts her position so she can tug his pants out of the way and expose his entire cock. She fits her hand around him lengthwise so her wrist presses against the tip, and she gives an experimental pump—and another, another, another. She quickly develops a rhythm, and slick sounds accompany each motion.

His hips twitch in encouragement. He opens one of his eyes and tilts his head so he can look at her. She’s panting softly, staring down at what her hand’s doing. He suspects her pupils are dilated but can’t see them from this angle.

Rick falls limp against the couch again. “Let’s have a little wager, Morty.”

She shudders—probably from the sandpaper quality of his voice. Even he can hear how husky it sounds in his arousal. Her own comes out breathless when she asks, “W-what do you mean?”

“Sell my_—mm… _ my latest product for me.” He lifts his hips, thrusting into her hand, and their rhythm stutters in sloppy, ill-timed movements until they sync with each other. He thrusts up, and she pumps down. It feels incredible, and he knows by the tightening in his balls and spasm in his pelvis that he’ll come soon.

Morty kisses his jaw. “Okay.”

“Hold on. Here’s the kicker: You can’t tell anyo_-oou-_ne what they’re_—fffuck, _ just like that. Uhh, what they’re buying. Can’t tell ‘em.”

“Why not?” She pecks his chin, keeping up her pace on his cock and making his abdomen clench and unclench with pleasure.

Rick groans, his head lolling on his neck. He’s _ so _ close. “Make me come, and I’ll tell you the rest.”

“Yes, Grandpa Rick.” Cloth shifts, and weight lifts off his lap. Before he can look, wet warmth engulfs him, and he chokes out a moan and a garbled string of curses. She just swallowed him. Her cheeks struggle around his girth, and he loves the way it feels.

“It’s illegal,” he murmurs.

“Hmm?”

“Holy_—fuck. _ Keep sucking, M-Morty. Just… just keep going.”

Morty’s head bobs in his lap, and his eyesight goes hazy as he stares, unseeing, at the television screen. Knowing he’s getting sucked by someone who legitimately hungers for his cock only makes it better. Somehow, he forces cohesive words out. “We’re gonna—it’s illegal because we’re gonna commit… We’re gonna commit a crime right under the council’s nose.”

She can’t ask questions without pulling away, and he knows she wants to. His hand cups the back of her head and hovers there as a warning.

“No, Morty, it’s n-not a crime to shell—sell shit in the Citadel,” he adds through gritted teeth. “It’s a crime to sell this shit—this in particular. It’s not drugs. A-and, even if it were, they’re not illegal in the Citadel. _ God, fuck, damn it. So close, Morty. _ Drugs laced with immunosuppressants, m-maybe. Drugs that make thousands fly into violent, fratricidal rage—eh, fifty-fifty. But_—ah—_R-Rick Sanchez never denies himself a quick high.”

Morty sucks her cheeks in and slides down his shaft as far as she can, and it’s enough to finally make him come. He hisses out something nonsensical, arches his hips, and spills into her mouth. She gags on his load, but, much to his satisfaction, she doesn’t pull away until she swallows all of it.

Somehow, she still looks shy when they make eye contact. How can she still be shy? “W-what do I get if I sell it?”

“My approval isn’t good enough?” Feeling relaxed, Rick stuffs his flagging erection back into his pants and zips and buttons back up. With his shirt tucked in and belt secured, he rises from the couch. “I’m joking. I won’t make you work for free. I know exa_-auuh-_ctly what you want.”

Morty attempts to be discreet about adjusting her panties through her jeans but fails miserably. When she stands, she stumbles on what he suspects are weakened knees. “What do I want, Rick?”

“Find me the right buyer for the right price,” he says, retrieving his portal gun. “If you pull off this sale, I’ll touch you.”

“‘Touch’ me?”

“Yep. As in ‘put my hands on you.’”

Morty folds her hands behind her back and draws her shoulders inward. She puckers her lips and dares to ask, “Just… um, just your hands?”

Rick snorts, opens a portal, and ushers her through.

* * *

* * *

Dusky purple blankets the Citadel of Ricks when the portal spits them out in the mouth of an alleyway looking out over a plaza of neon-emblazoned nightlife. Lines of Ricks and Mortys mingle in the streets outside various bars, clubs, and shops. Morty peeks out at them until Rick takes her by the shoulders and pushes her up against the brick wall. His blue irises briefly catch the light from passing headlights. For a moment, they’re the only hint of color in the shadows between them.

“Listen carefully,” he begins, slow in enunciation, taking up her entire field of vision with his stern face. She watches his lips as they form the words—reads them, hears them, mimics them—but they don’t register right away.

When they do, she blinks out of her daze. “W-what? Rick—”

“—Listen, Morty. We’re in an alleyway next to a bar. The bar is called ‘Death by Seventy-Seven.’ Got that? Huge sign outside, two sevens. Can’t miss it. Don’t go anywhere else.”

“Why—”

Rick covers her mouth with his palm and leans in until his exhalations stir her bangs. “When I go in, wait fifteen minutes before following me. Don’t mention you have a Rick unless you absolutely have to. Trust me, things will go much smoother if they think you’re alone. I’ll be watching, but don’t look for me. Just focus on your marks.”

Morty grows distressed by the urgency in his voice. When he removes his hand, she pleads, “Can’t you tell me anything else about what I’m selling?”

“Nope.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

Rick sighs and closes his eyes like her questions physically hurt him. “Mo_-ouur-_rty, it’s simple: Make ‘em think you’re hiding something extremely rare and valuable—something they don’t know they want. Keep it vague but interesting. Flirt a little. You’re a clueless little Morty desperate for a Rick to take charge of this adva_-auugh-_nced piece of tech you found. When you think you have the right buyer, arrange a rendezvous point. Then walk out of the bar.”

“Okay, but… how will I know who’s the right buyer, Rick? How will they—I know if they even have enough money to buy… buy whatever it is?”

“I can’t answer that for you; just keep your eyes and ears open. Use some deductive reasoning. C’mon, you’re not a complete dumbass. Stop trying to act like one.”

“Why won’t you help me?” Morty whimpers. “Grandpa Rick, _ please. _ Please don’t leave me alone.”

He pulls back, dodging her hands. “Remember the stakes. You agreed to this.”

“That was before you tell—I-I mean, told me you’re leaving me by myself!”

“Fifteen minutes, Morty. Don’t wander off.” Rick pats her cheek and strolls away without a backward glance.

Distraught, Morty stares after him. She wants to follow, but obedience roots her feet to the ground. The evening air, while warm, is a small consolation; she feels colder after watching him walk away.

Thirteen excruciating minutes later, she can’t wait any longer. Leaving the alleyway, she glances across the vehicle-lined street, where the rowdy lines have only lengthened. Bouncer Mortys, oddly buff in a way that seems impossible for their age, stand in the doorways with their arms crossed while angry patrons heckle them. Most Ricks, and several Mortys, are already loaded and swaying in place.

Tearing her eyes away, she tilts her head back and finds the sign for Death by 77, as crimson as blood and just as blinding as all other signs along the street. When she pushes through the doors, she stands in the entryway and takes it all in.

Acrid clouds of cigarette smoke choke the dim overhead lights and flood the room with a haziness. Drinking games and betting take place in the corners, swarming with competitive Ricks unaccompanied by their Mortys. Music thumps from hidden speakers—felt, not heard, through the jeering when two Ricks slam their empty shot glasses down in rapid succession. At least thirty flat-screen televisions tune into interdimensional cable from every angle. The bar itself, accented with stone and cherry wood and wrapped by small tables sparsely occupied by lone Ricks and their overflowing tabs, sits in the center.

Against Rick’s instructions, she spends the next minute scanning the room for him but can’t find a single pair of glasses in the crowd. She forces herself to push aside her bout of neediness.

Who’s the right buyer? What’s the right price? Those are the two biggest questions she has to ask herself tonight. It feels like an impossible task, and part of her worries that that’s the point, that Rick gave her this mission knowing she would fail. While her prize is motivation enough, the thought of overcoming his expectations only makes her more determined to succeed.

She takes in a deep breath and ambles through the rows of tables in search of nothing in particular. As she approaches the nearest Rick, whose eyes are glued to the television above him, she mulls over a greeting to snag his attention. Before she can voice it, her foot catches the leg of a wayward chair, and she trips, crashing at his feet.

“Oww…” Morty hisses between her teeth at the pain flaring in her palms and knees. She turns her hands over, inspecting her skin for any bleeding, and a hand appears in front of her. She takes it and lets him pull her upright. “Thanks.”

“Mm-hmm. Careful.” This Rick, average in every way, immediately returns his eyes to the television, which displays a commercial about breakfast cereal. It quickly turns violent.

She hovers in indecision before inviting herself to sit opposite him, climbing the leg supports to reach the seat. Seconds creep past in awkward silence as she waits for him to acknowledge her, but he’s too captivated by the screen—like Dad when he watches Investigation Discovery even though he already knows how it ends because they didn’t interview the victim.

“So? I _ like _ spoilers! It tells me how I’m supposed to react,” Dad would protest too defensively to be casual. It’s easy to get a reaction out of him; maybe that’s why Mom doesn’t have to try anymore. Chores, bills, daily food prep—everything’s on the table when it comes to their tempers. Watching them is like predicting what will happen if she pets her kitten the wrong way.

Morty giggles to herself, unsure why she finds it funny. Do well-adjusted teenagers laugh at their own domestic turbulence? Maybe it’s nerves. Maybe things are worse than she thinks. Maybe she’s losing her mind.

But, when Rick looks at her, nothing else matters. “Something on my face?”

Still smiling, she shakes her head.

“Ever seen this show?” He gestures at the screen, and she swivels around to watch with him. “Okay, so, the premise is this guy’s airplane crash-lands on this island full of mutant cannibals. And his daughter—h-he had his daughter with him on the plane—his daughter goes missing. He has to find her, Morty. He can’t leave without her. Well, he can’t leave at all, but he can’t leave without _ her. _ He’s gotta do all this crazy shit to survive.”

The screen shows nothing remotely close to what he’s describing, but she plays along. “Oh, jeez. Does he find her, Rick?”

“How the hell should I know, _ Morty? _ I just sta_-auu-_rted watching it. I’m just making shit up. Y-y-you think this is actually about airplanes and mutant cannibals? Why is that building made of cheese? Why are those—why isn’t that guy worried about his apartment reeking in the summer? Who the hell lives in open-concept gouda?! You might as well just take a huge steaming dump in your own living room!”

Laughter bursts out of her before she can cover her mouth, and Rick joins in with his own chuckling.

“So,” he says, drinking his beer, “what’s your story?”

Morty’s humor subsides, taking her smile with it. She keeps her eyes on the screen. The man in the show deals with a spot of mold in his bedroom by cutting a hole into his neighbor’s apartment, and chaos ensues. She snatches the first lie that comes to her. “I, um, live here. In the Citadel.”

“Obviously. Waiting for reassignment? Too bad. Heard it’s choked right now.”

“No, nothing like that.” Out loud, the words sound too defensive, limiting her conversation options—spoken on autopilot because she can’t bring herself to imagine life without N-66ς—so she amends, “W-well, maybe a little like that. I… I’m always looking for the right Rick. But, um…”

“Yeeep. Take your time. I can go piss while you work on getting to the point.”

She laughs again and rubs the back of her neck, looking over her shoulder at him. Despite the abrasive words, his body language all but radiates patience, setting her at ease. “S-sorry. It’s just… Well, I found something.”

“Yea_-auugh?” _

“Yeah. It looks really important, but I, um, don’t know anything about it. I need your help.”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

_ It’s illegal. It’s valuable, _ she reminds herself. _ Ricks don’t know they want it. Make them want it. _

“I wish I could. All I know is it’s one of a kind, a-and other people are looking for it. I haven’t told anyone about it—just you, Rick. I want—it needs a good home. W-will you give it a good home? We can go somewhere to—we can discuss the details somewhere private… if y-you want.”

Morty finishes the sales pitch with her most innocent glance, accompanied by a twirl of her hair around one finger.

Rick drains his glass and snickers. “Quite the little hustler.”

Her mouth falls open, but he cuts her off with, “I’m not offended, so calm down. Know what your mistake wa_-auu-_s?”

She shakes her head.

“You’re cute.” He tosses some cash on the table and stands. “Goddamn adorable, in fact. Lead with that, and you’ll see results. I’d adopt you if I didn’t already have a Morty of my own, but I’m not too far gone to fantasize about fucking my flesh and blood. Apparently, seven in ten Ricks are, so your odds aren’t bad. Good luck, kiddo.”

Embarrassment floods her gut as she watches him exit the bar. Her first failure hits her harder than anticipated, and she spends a few minutes re-evaluating her game plan and working through her sudden timidity. When she’s ready, she slides off her chair and looks for another Rick. She squeezes past a small boisterous group.

Someone snags Morty’s wrist, and an arm wraps around her rib cage, lifting her onto a lap. White floods her peripheral vision, and the lab coat feels starched where her shirt has ridden up her back. She goes boneless, melts into the stench of alcohol, and settles against his chest like she was made to fit.

She thinks_—hopes—_it’s N-66ς, but he doesn’t smell the same. And he never touches her.

“Looking for me, baby?” slurs the unknown Rick at the shell of her ear. “Grandpa’s got you.”

Morty closes her eyes and lets his fingers play at the hem of her shirt and stroke her hair. She imagines the bump of glasses against her face as he noses at her neck, and the phantom scent of aftershave tickles her nostrils. The music pounds in the nonexistent space between their bodies, electrifying her senses. She grabs his arm when his hand dips into her jeans without warning.

This Rick isn’t her Rick; it’s shameful how easily she tricks herself into fantasy. As he breaks from her hold and creeps into her panties and through her pubic hair, she tells herself to resist and tease, to lure him with the promise of more. She needs to impress N-66ς by manipulating this guy into a sale. As long as Ricks desire her, she has the upper hand. She has value.

_ Seven in ten Ricks. _

But Morty can’t seduce anything. She can’t even objectify herself in her own mind without something putrid flaring within her chest.

Discomfort, deep and jagged: She’s restless with it.

This isn’t what she _ wants _ even though she wants it—it, this drunken old man who wears a roguishly handsome face and speaks in a gravelly baritone that could utter either the ugliest or most mundane things and still turn her on.

He looks and sounds and dresses like N-66ς, but he’s not him. And N-66ς looks and sounds and dresses like her dead grandfather, but he’s not him.

Morty’s chest seizes with pain, writhing under the profound wrongness, just as Rick’s fingertip nudges her clitoris. The bulge of his hand straining in her jeans is hidden under the table, but the shrewd-looking Rick across from her affords a glance under lowered lashes like he’s the one touching her. She realizes she wants him, too, and the four Ricks behind him, and she mentally recoils at how sick she is.

Her hand grasps Rick’s arm again, but she can’t restrain him from sliding along her pussy and nudging her thighs apart with his wrist. With bass thumping alongside her rapid heartbeat, she lets him spread her open on his lap. Pleasure clenches her abdomen as she narrows her focus on his languid rubbing—up and down, up and down, small circles and back down. He glides with ease, slick sounds lost in the general cacophony; she’s impossibly wet from the exhibitionism.

Her eyelids droop. Her breathing quickens. She shifts atop the rigid outline of his erection. In a few minutes, she can come like this in front of everyone. She hopes he doesn’t stop; maybe a toe-numbing orgasm will help her concentrate on her goal.

“Grandpa,” she whimpers, unsure of who she’s addressing. Two more Ricks lift their gazes from their drinks and watch her, and she flicks her eyes between them. Do they care about her like a granddaughter? Can she even call them “Grandpa,” or are they just strangers who share a fraction of DNA with her?

“That’s it. Good girl—so fuckin’ wet for me. I’m gonna make you feel _ so good.” _

A curled middle finger swirls around her entrance. She jerks in Rick’s arms with a stifled noise, and her eyes squeeze shut.

“What’s her ra_-auugh-_te?” asks one of the other Ricks.

The reply touches her ear like a filthy promise. “Haven’t talked business yet. You can ask after I’m done.”

“No.” Morty’s eyes pop open in alarm. Arms tighten around her when she tests their hold. “I don’t—I’m not a… I-I-I’m not for sale.”

Rick shushes her and works at his belt, button, and zipper with his other hand. Feeling faint, she listens to his progress. The tear of his zipper prickles her ears.

The fingertip sinks inside her, and, with a pained gasp, she tries to squirm away from the burning sensation. “It hurts. Wait, I’ve never—”

A mug slams down on the table, and Morty jolts upright, flustered, making eye contact with a Morty wearing a black apron over his yellow shirt and jeans. He dismisses her with a tilt of his head, looking over her, presumably at Rick.

“You can’t do that in here,” he says, indifferent in both expression and tone like he’s reciting a rule instead of enforcing it. “You want to fuck, go to a hotel. Here’s your drink.”

“About fucking time,” Rick snaps, pulling his hand out of her jeans and grasping the mug with soaked fingers, much to her mortification. “Your response time is ass. And this shit’s warm!”

“I’m not a waiter; I left it at the bar for you ten minutes ago. If you hadn’t been molesting your Morty, you might’ve noticed.” Bartender Morty shrugs a shoulder and turns away. “Like I said, you want to fuck, you go to a hotel.”

“He…” Morty fidgets, unable to stay silent as something ugly rears up in protest within her, “he’s not my—”

“—She’s not his Morty,” interrupts one of the spectating Ricks. He takes a gulp of his drink and wipes his mouth. “I’ve seen her around with En-Six-Six-Si_-iiuh-_gma.”

Morty finds herself shoved off her perch, and she barrels into Bartender Morty, who doesn’t flinch at the impact. She whips around in time to catch Rick hastily zipping up his pants and slapping a wad of bills down on the table. He mutters something about deceptive interest rates and rushes out of the bar with hunched shoulders.

The other Ricks appear guarded when they look her over once more, and she suddenly realizes why she wasn’t supposed to reveal that she already has a Rick. Their body language is cold, disinterested, and she knows they won’t trust a word from her now. At a loss, she turns and flees after Bartender Morty.

“I don’t serve Mortys,” he drawls without looking back at her. He lifts the bar hatch, steps inside, and closes it, leaving her to claim a stool on the other side of the counter. “Try Morty’s Choice across the street. They’re well-equipped with palatable mixes, tequila, and rim sugar. You may find something akin to amaretto if you’re feeling daring.”

“I’m okay.” Morty props her chin up on her fist and watches him dunk his arms in a basin full of soapy water and dishes. “You don’t sound like any Morty I’ve heard.”

“Minus the effeminate pitch, you sound like every other Morty I’ve heard.”

She winces at his stab, delivered in a monotone. “Why are you a bartender? You sound really smart. Y-you should be in charge or something.”

He gives a noncommittal hum. “Do you know why this bar is called ‘Death by Seventy-Seven’? Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

“Um, what’s the obvious part?”

“‘Seventy-seven’ refers to getting penetrated from behind. ‘Fucked in the ass,’ if you will,” Bartender Morty explains. “Aside from that, it’s what every Rick innately understands: something just out of reach. The average arm span of Rick Sanchez is seventy-six inches. Get it?”

She scrunches up her face in thought. “So… ‘Death by’—”

“—Every Rick has a ‘seventy-seven’ story—that one time they weren’t completely prepared for all outcomes and their consequences. Chances are they nearly died because they didn’t have some gadget or weapon on their person. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s impossible for a Rick to account for external intervention; they’re not gods. It’s a portent, a metaphor, a proverb, an innuendo, and discrimination all in one.” He lifts his lips in something too lackluster to be called a smile. “I named it.”

Morty’s eyes light up, and she surveys her surroundings in renewed awe. “Is this _ your _ bar? You own it?”

“The zoning department, licensing committees, construction supervisors—all Ricks. They didn’t make it easy, but it’s mine. Infamous for being the ‘wind-down’ location for Ricks high on the adrenaline of near-death experiences.”

“Oh, wow. Where’s your Rick?” She cranes her neck. “Lemme guess. He’s the one judging that drinking contest over there?”

“I don’t have a Rick.”

The edge in his tone cuts her attention back to him. “S-sorry. Did he…?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. Not all Mortys are defined by their relationship with Rick Sanchez.” He levels a stare at her. “But you… En-Six-Six-Sigma’s new Morty. Tell me, why is En-Six-Six-Sigma’s Morty prostituting herself in my bar?”

Morty flushes. “Jeez. I get your point. But I wasn’t—I-I’m not, um, prostituting myself.”

“Then what _ are _ you doing?”

“I’m selling something.” At the hardening of his expression, she quickly adds, “Not myself. It’s something… it’s something else.”

“With a sales pitch like that, how have you not found a buyer yet? You were clearly taught by the best.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters, prickling at his sarcasm. “It’s… a secret. It’s—mm, I can’t talk about it here. All I can say is it’s valuable tech, and it needs—I can’t keep it safe by myself.”

It’s easier to talk to another Morty than a Rick. She doesn’t feel shy or inadequate around this kid, even as intelligent and well-spoken as he is. With a Rick, she’s too concerned about the state of her hair and his opinion of her. She wishes she could cut out that shallow part of herself.

They fall into silence, disrupted by the idle tapping of Morty’s fingers on the bar top and the clinking of glasses as Bartender Morty stores them in an overhead cabinet. She chews on her lip as she searches for a new target. Her eyes land on a Rick with a rumpled buttoned-down shirt under his lab coat and stubble on his chin. A full glass sits in front of him as he stirs the ice with his finger. He looks despondent, vulnerable enough to manipulate—but she just wants to know what put that terrible expression on his face.

_ A bar for Ricks after near-death experiences. _ Did he lose his Morty? Her chest clenches at the notion.

As she stands from her chair and takes a step, Bartender Morty stops her with, “I close at five o’clock. If you’re even a second late, never come back here.”

“In the morning? Y-y-you want me to be here? Why? Wait—are you buying from me?”

He gives her a bland flick of his eyes and turns his back on her. She drags her gaze to Sad Rick, who has folded his arms on the table and buried his face in them. He doesn’t appear willing to talk.

_ I’d probably just make it worse. _ With a heavy heart, Morty trudges out of the bar with her hands in her pockets.

* * *

* * *

“Give up, Morty?”

Morty spins around and finds a Rick standing over her. It’s the shrewd-looking Rick who watched her get fingered from across the table. She opens her mouth to speak—and snaps it shut when he reaches into his lab coat and retrieves a familiar pair of glasses. He unfolds them and puts them on his nose.

“Hey, not everyone can close a deal,” N-66ς says, “but, then again, not eve_-eeug-_ryone will take a dick for it. C-minus for effort.”

Color floods her cheeks. “You—you didn’t even tell me what I was selling. When you sell something, you always have all the information. I was at a—that was a huge handicap.”

“How am I going to make you better if I don’t challenge you? There’s no value in easy mode. No risk, no reward, no permanent unlocks, no leaderboards. You had everything you needed; the rest was up to you.”

“Aw, jeez.” She flounders for a witty response but fails to think of one in time. Instead, she asks, “So, a-are you… are you willing to… um, do _ that _ for a sale?”

Rick quirks his brow. “Are you asking if I’ve gotten fucked in the ass, Morty? Fishing for a new fantasy for your spank bank—me taking a dick because I’m hot for numbers and artificial value?”

She wrings her shirt between her fingers and says nothing; she knows it’s clear on her face.

He rolls his eyes. “Look, I don’t need to justify myself to you, but I collect clients. It’s weirdly satisfying. But let’s just say not all Ricks are easy sells, especially if they have their own channels. Once or twice, I’ve offered some _ special financing options, _ namely bending over and getting stuffed.”

Wide-eyed and speechless, Morty continues to stare at him.

“A Morty constant is to obsess over every stupid little thing,” Rick adds with a hint of hostility. “A Rick constant is to be a huge raging slut when the mood strikes. Isn’t it amazing what you can aspire to when you stop giving a shit about anything?”

“But you’re not—you’re different from the rest,” she mumbles, not intending to be heard.

“You’d like to think so_-oouh, _ huh?” Despite his dismissal, he seems thoughtful as he opens a portal for them. “Anyway, got a little project for us, so clear your schedule.”

“Rick, can you bring me back here just before five o’clock? It’s really, really important that I’m—I can’t be late. Not even for a second.”

He raises a perplexed brow. “In the morning?”

“Yep.” Morty skips toward the portal, and, just before stepping through, she smiles shyly at him over her shoulder. “I’ve got a sale!”


	8. Am I "Rick" Enough for You?

Leaning against the washing machine in the garage, Morty watches as Rick fires a portal to the left and disappears through it. Ten seconds later, he reappears with an armful of scrap metal and tosses it on the floor with a shrill clatter that makes her wince. He repeats it twice more. His actions seem kind of jerky—careless, like he’s agitated with her.

“I take you to a bar full of Ricks—” Opening another portal to the right, he dips in and out and discards more parts into the growing pile. He heads for the left one again without looking at her and finishes, “And you make a deal with a Morty?”

By the time she opens her mouth to reply, Rick pokes half his body through the portal and seems to rummage inside the unknown destination. Is it a scrapyard? Someone’s backyard? A self-storage garage? His backside gives a little shake, and he lifts a leg and bends farther in on his toes. When he teeters like he’s falling in, Morty propels forward to grab his lab coat and pull him out. Both portals dip out of existence.

Cradled in his arms is a chrome box resembling a car battery. She gives it a sideways look and wonders if he stole it straight out of someone’s vehicle.

But Rick isn’t done with his thought and immediately launches back into it. “Seriously, that’s what you consider ‘the right buyer’?”

A cracked headlight wiggles free of the mess and rolls until it hits her shoe. She crouches down to pick it up and shrugs her shoulders even though he can’t see it while digging through the parts. “If you tell me what I’m selling him, I’ll, um—m-maybe I can answer that.”

He glances over his shoulder and gives her a long look that has her holding her breath. His knees creak when he pushes himself upright and goes to the workbench. With a shift of paper, he reveals a hidden button in the corkboard and smashes it.

A seamless tile in the garage floor lifts and slides away under Morty’s foot, and, with a squeak, she skitters out of the way. The blue-steel pedestal rising from the blackness holds a glass orb containing a glowing chip pinched between metal claws. The light emanating from it sends rainbow shards over Rick’s face as he approaches it. He sweeps his hand out as if to say, “Well?”

Mesmerized by the intricacy of its design, Morty follows the lines of circuitry as they pulse in a pattern that reminds her of breathing. She almost presses her nose against the glass. It looks beautiful. It looks _ expensive. _ “W-what is it, Rick?”

“It’s an extremely a_-auu-_dvanced and unique piece of tech, and a Morty wouldn’t know what to do with it. I mean, look at you. You’re fucking dumbfounded. You’re looking at it and thinking, ‘Aw, jeez, that’s a fancy-looking SIM card; I bet it goes in an alien smartphone.’ You are, aren’t you?”

She hunches her shoulders, and he laughs at her. “He… um, h-he seems really smart. Doesn’t talk like any Morty I’ve ever heard. I think he can figure it out.”

“A Morty thinks another Morty seems smart. Shit, I’m sold.”

“Jeez. Why do you even care? As long as he has—he can afford it.” Even as she says it, eyeing the chip and all its beauty, she doubts anyone can afford it.

“He’s not gonna get anywhere near the number I have in mind.” All humor wipes from Rick’s face as he meets her eyes over the orb. Shadows cast his lines into sharp relief. “I told you to use your eyes. Did you even listen to me, Morty?”

A cold tremor goes through her limbs. “Of course, I did. I-I always listen to you. Every word you say, e-even if I don’t understand.”

Her throat closes with a wrench of emotion before she can add that she loves listening to him and could listen to him for hours straight. She hates his expression, more so while it’s focused on her. He looks… She can’t find a word for it, but it surfaced once before, when she was with T-7ϕ80 in the motel room. Disgust or anger? Hopefully, it’s neither; it’s out of place on him.

“Could’ve fooled me_-eeeuh. _ You learned that bar’s a place for Ricks who nearly died and need a few drinks to unwind, right?”

“Yeah, but… um, h-how do you know that?”

“Insecure little girl like you? I predicted you would hone—home in on the only other Morty in the room and start up a conversation. No way it wouldn’t come up once you realized he owned the place. Remember what I said about constants? Patting yourself on the back—your try-hard Morty back—is another one.”

Her first instinct is to tell him he does plenty of that, too. But she pushes that prickly part aside to absorb the implication of his words. He predicted it? No, he _planned_ it.

“After you almost experience death and everything that comes with it, you either climb down the ladder or fall off it. Ehh, my point is there was only one Rick-hole in that room who wasn’t partying his ass off, and you went straight for the one watching interdimensional cable and sipping beer like it was just another day.”

“You… you…” Morty can’t wrangle a sentence together, reeling from the realization that the entire thing was calculated. What does that mean for her? “Rick, you—”

“—Yeah, I scoped out the place for you. I found you a very simple, very easy-to-spot mark, and you co_-oouh-_uldn’t even do that. Not a shred of deductive reasoning in that dumb head. Eye-Fifty-Two-Epsilon was _ the right buyer.” _

She has never heard that dimension number before, but, unbidden, the vision comes to her: Sad Rick stirring his drink with his finger, lost in his thoughts, too depressed to lift the glass and sip it. He stood out from the rest, but she never approached him. She talked herself out of it—failed in her mission, all while N-66ς watched and counted on her to succeed.

Suddenly, she thinks she can place his expression: disappointment. It makes her chest clench hard enough to hurt. “Did he… did his Morty d-die?”

Rick seems to silently debate whether to tell her. He releases a long breath through his nose. “I don’t know. Epsilon lost his Morty a couple months ago to organic trafficking. They screw with DNA, fit everyone into the same template—this disgusting goddamn mass of flesh and holes; a farm-grown fuckbeast. Without this,” he gestures to the orb, “he’d never be able to identify his Morty if he were still alive.”

Morty’s stomach gives a dangerous lurch when she fails to keep herself from imagining what a “farm-grown fuckbeast” looks like. In her mind, it’s pink, veiny, throbbing, and oozing, covered with a hundred blinking eyeballs and puckered sphincters. It kills her to think of a Morty trapped somewhere inside it, his atoms mashed with those of countless other people. Does he feel what they feel? Can he have a single thought of his own anymore? Can he even be rescued?

She swallows against the taste of acid. “Why… why do you care about him? About his M-Morty?”

“I don’t.” He uncovers a numpad under a sliding panel built into the side of the podium and types a long sequence into it. The glass orb melts like water, dissipating into nothingness and baring the chip to the air. “I wanted to exploit his guilt. He’s desperate to save his Morty and has plenty of flurbos to blow.”

The stomach acid returns. Of course, this is the same guy who called himself a psychopath incapable of unconditional love.

_ He only loves things that are useful to him, _ she thinks. _ Will he love me if I’m useful? _

“Then does that mean—does the chip show dimension numbers somehow?” she asks, watching as he extracts it with a pair of long tweezers, locks it away inside a palm-sized box, and pockets it. “I think even a Morty could, um, get use out of something like that.”

Rick arches his brow at her, and something close to approval seems to pass across his face, thawing her the tiniest bit. “Fine, Mo_-ouur-_rty. Fine. We’ll go back to this ‘Smart Morty’ of yours in the morning and see what he’s got to offer. Now, enough chatting. Let’s get to work.”

With that, they launch into the project. The bones of a saucer-shaped spaceship emerge until Mom sticks her head in and calls them for a late dinner. Morty is too lost in thought to care about being discovered alone with Rick; she wonders if he’s looking for a reason to make her useful to him and struggles to romanticize it through the ever-present gnashing in her heart.

_ Wrong, wrong, wrong, _ it beats. Everything about this relationship is wrong, but she’s determined to make it feel _right—_somehow.

* * *

* * *

The only reason Rick’s agreeing to the upcoming morning excursion is because he has suspicions of his own. He heard the careful way the bar owner articulated his words and witnessed the calm control in his demeanor. Despite his heckling, Rick knows intelligent Mortys exist—rarely, just like the female variants—and that they’re as shrewd as any Rick.

I-52ε is the perfect mark for the ocular chip, but Rick can adapt. He made a name out of it by fighting his way up from the very bottom and shedding his old title of “Dumbest Rick.”

In his forties, the era of his life before interdimensional travel, he provides consults for the greatest minds on Earth and makes a hobby out of solving the most difficult problems over breakfast. Without a wife or daughter to distract him, he uses nearly every waking moment to tackle the next human dilemma.

But that doesn’t make him special; most Ricks did the same thing before the concept of a portal gun began to emerge in their collective minds around twenty-eight years old at the earliest. What makes him special—rather, a complete joke to his infinite selves—is the fact that he takes _ so fucking long _ to conceive the multiverse. He glues his eyes to the things around him, not through them, and that’s why U-2ψ0 comes to him after his forty-second birthday. If not for U-2ψ0’s intervention, he probably would’ve died of old age before ever stepping foot in Blips and Chitz.

When he moves to the Citadel, the first few months are hell. The others consider his existence an insult to Rick-kind, and the council hopes to make him disappear by blacklisting him to the lowest station. It doesn’t matter that he has the same IQ. His litany of accomplishments on Earth earn him more scorn than admiration. To other Ricks, he’s the shit floating in the toilets he has to clean as part of the janitorial staff.

His first day on the job, he meets J19ζ7, “Doofus Rick,” a Rick treated worse than him, and their comradery exacerbates the ridicule. It’s like pledging in a fraternity that doesn’t want him wearing the name, but this is the one fraternity he can’t leave alive—because he was born into it.

Over time, it depresses him, makes him believe what they’re saying about him. He wants to stick up both middle fingers and give them all a big “fuck-you” on his way back to his own dimension, but, before he can, he’s drafted into four years of militia duty, specifically Alpha-Nine Squad, where J19ζ7 already serves on reserve. He can't walk away; the punishment for deserting the Citadel is total assimilation—an irreversible session with targeted neural technology to strip him of his sense of self.

He’d rather die than become a council dog.

A year goes by. It’s a long year of urinals and patrols, a piss-stained navy-blue jumpsuit and a bleached-white militia coat. He sells his house in Dimension N-66ς and trades it for a bed in the common barracks. Going above his job description means he’s trying too hard, while slacking reinforces what his brothers-in-arms think of his “useless old ass.”

So, he finds a middle ground and drinks. He drinks to deaden his emotions. He drinks to make his service commitment go by faster. He drinks to fall asleep at night. The jokes eventually make him laugh, and the insults distort into nicknames. About the time his self-expectations drop to subcritical mass, his smile gains a cold edge that looks condescending.

J19ζ7 hates what he’s becoming, but Rick doesn’t care enough to maintain their friendship, built entirely on feeling sorry for themselves and each other.

“You look like them, Sigma. Gosh, y-y-you sound just like them now…”

“And you’re envious,” he retorts in a way he knows will cut the other man deeper than anything else, “because you can’t do the same.”

In the end, he _ does _ assimilate, just not how he expected. In becoming what he is, he loses sight of what he was. Acute alcoholic gastritis induces uncontrollable belching as a speech impediment, and his hygiene suffers. Nihilism follows close behind. With hair-trigger anger, severe depression, and existential doubt, he’s on the fast track to a crisis. All he needs is a sidekick Morty to complete the pathetic ensemble.

Then comes the quarterly patrol in Nimpretyx-5, a supplier planet in Quadrant 78χ, where the workers are disillusioned by their own menial existence, lagging on their quota. He’s loaded, stumbling, swinging both his laser pistol and dick around while he berates the workers stacking boxes on the assembly line.

“You bload—blox—urgh, load boxes like old people fu_-uuhh-_ck,” he slurs over their heads, speckling the purple pill-shaped creatures with his saliva and blowing clouds of putrid breath. “S-slow ‘n’ slo_-ouuh-_ppy.”

The squad supervisor, Sergeant Major Rick E-705, is beyond done with him by this point. He rolls his eyes, turns his back on him, and lets him have free rein to torture the Vropians. It’s the Alpha-Nine motto: “I didn’t see it, so it didn’t happen.”

That’s when Rick goes on an unfiltered tirade about the workers’ role in society and the non-value of their lives, but, to him, it sounds more like projection from a man on the verge of collapse. There’s an unchecked note of hysteria in his voice.

“I’mma piece of dogshit, but you guys? Y-y-you—you guys are lookin’ up at me like I’m god, and I’m just a sh—I’m total dogshit. So, what does that make you? You exist to pack boxes all day lo_-oouuu-_ng. Hell, we force you to use your paycheck to pie—buy the packing peanuts and tape! When you go home and fuck your wives, you’re—a-and husbands, whatever, y-you’re just popping out more workers for us, so, yeah, uhhh, let that sink in. If anyone thinks they have it rough_—hooo, _ boy, all they have to do is take a little trip to this shiphole—ship? Shh… sh-shithole planet and watch you guys for a few hours. This is rock bottom right here. Nope, can’t get any worse than this.”

While he verbally abuses them, the workers exchange glances. They’re probably thinking about the meaninglessness of it all, trapped under the ceiling that dips lower and lower as more species sit on top and use them to mass-produce toothbrushes, lube, and all those throwaway convenience products that nobody gives a second thought about. But they don’t have muscles in their faces to make expressions, so they maintain that same blank stare they give their televisions and families when their fifteen-hour shifts end.

Most importantly, they watch as he wields power over them. They see him knocking back the flask of vodka and breathing it out with his acerbic words in the next motion. They witness all of this while his supervisor, the person appointed to keep _him_ in check, walks away and lets him handle the job in his own way.

Over the course of his patrols, he’s come to learn a few things about this race. There’s no liquid on Nimpretyx-5, so the Vropians feed on gases they take in through pores in their skin. Their fragile innards comprise a complex labyrinth of tubes that separate gas molecules and distribute them through their bodies at a comfortable seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit. They nourish themselves by breathing the dry atmosphere, which makes them ideal for low wages and long hours. But they still have mouths for talking.

As he lifts his flask to his lips, Rick becomes inspired: He talks one of the Vropians into finishing his vodka.

He spends ten minutes convincing them that whatever’s in his flask is the reason he’s in charge, that it transforms even the most timid slave into a taskmaster. They don’t know what alcohol does, exactly, but they understand it’s a liquid, a mysterious state of matter that they’ve never consumed before.

Rick’s target looks identical to the homogeneous majority, and his coworkers are chirping in their kettle-whistle voices, begging him not to take the flask. Their faces are devoid of expression, but the fear of the unknown swims clear in their eyes. But this Vropian is world-weary enough to try it, _ and— _

With a sly smile, Rick pulls the flask back when he reaches for it. “Twenty-five merotts, and it’s yours.”

—he’ll pay for the opportunity.

Twenty-five merotts is an entire day’s wage and the price of a can of soda from a Citadel vending machine. To them, it’s the difference between air conditioning and suffering in the heat all night, but the Vropian needs little convincing to make the transfer. He downs the flask in one go and chokes on it.

For the next eleven seconds, he giggles like the happiest package drone in the multiverse. His internal tubing becomes distended by the alcohol coursing through it, bulging through his skin like he swallowed a tangled mess of clothes hangers. The vodka saturates his cells and gets him very drunk quickly. Those eleven seconds look like the best of his miserable life.

Then he explodes, sending strings of gore in every direction.

“Get back to work!” Rick barks with a face covered in cyan-blue blood, and the screaming Vropians fall over themselves and slip on smears of meat to triple their effort on the assembly line. “If I ever have to come back here because of your lazy asses, I’ll flood your whole _ goddamn fucking planet _ and get wasted on your guts!”

Sergeant Major E-705 grudgingly commends him on the quick solution and, over beers that night, tells the rest of the squad what he did. They lose their shit over the whole thing and accumulate seven noise complaints like badges of honor. Meanwhile, J19ζ7 mourns the dead Vropian with a glass of cranberry juice and crushed ice, and life seems to get a little easier for N-66ς, who feels more like his old self for the first time in a year and a half. On his way back to the barracks, while still wearing Vropian blood like war paint, he buys a Coke with the twenty-five merotts and mixes it with celebratory rum.

It feels like the beginning of something great.

* * *

* * *

_ Sunday, October 26, 2014 _

The Citadel’s clock, like the weather, is an arbitrary construct subject to the whims of the council. Five o’clock in Citadel time creeps up on them just after Rick sends Morty to bed. Their project, a spaceship to reach the Gretandeloplasts, isn’t complete, but her incessant yawning forced him to find a stopping point for the night.

He has had a plethora of ships over the years but never one sturdy enough to survive more than a couple outings. Expectations for this one are just as low, but he rarely cruises the galaxy, anyway.

It’s 3:27a.m. Pacific Daylight Time when he takes a portal into Morty’s bedroom and finds her passed out—too exhausted, again, to undress and crawl underneath the blanket. She has gotten about two hours of sleep, and he hasn’t slept at all. He shakes her awake, and she grumbles and resists consciousness until he mutters, “Time to see if you deserve your prize, Morty,” in her ear.

Her bloodshot eyes all but shine in the partial darkness, and she stumbles after him.

At 4:59a.m. Rick Sanchez Time (RST), the Citadel streets have mostly emptied of their former traffic as the bars and clubs kick out their last few patrons and lock their doors until the next evening. A lone car coasts past them, briefly blinding them with headlights.

Rick turns around and looks up at the unlit sign for Death by 77. It’s dark through the windows and devoid of life. Morty stands on her tiptoes and presses her face against the glass, but she soon pulls away with a concerned twist of her brow.

“H-he told me—he said five o’clock. Are we late?”

Rick glances at his watch. “Ten seconds ‘til, so I guess he was fucking with you. Don’t te_-euuh-_ll me you’re surprised.”

With a downturned face, Morty kicks a rock, and it skitters across the sidewalk and ricochets off a trash can. Her words are barely audible when she mumbles, “Sorry, Rick… I-I messed up.”

She looks so pathetic. If he leaves her like that, she’ll sulk for days, and he doesn’t want to have to explain to Beth what happened. He bends over to her eye level and hooks a finger under her chin. “We’ll talk to Epsilon tomorrow. But the same rules still apply even though you know what it does.”

She agrees—then freezes. “Here?”

“This is where he drinks, so…”

“But… that Morty—he told me not to come back if I was late.”

Rick straightens up and crosses his arms. “You weren’t late. Either way, he’s not gonna do shit to keep us out.”

“En-Six-Six-Sigma,” greets the distinctive, disembodied monotone of the bar owner, “and En-Six-Six-Sigma’s Morty. Please excuse my tardiness.”

He’s standing in the doorway, holding the door open for them. Morty perks right up and approaches him with an outstretched hand. “Hi. I didn’t really get to introduce myself earlier, but I’m Eff-Two—umm.”

Rick sighs when she shoots him a distressed glance over her shoulder. “She’s not ‘En-Six-Six-Sigma’s Morty.’ She’s Eff-Two-Delta-Ninety-Six.”

Unknown Morty ignores her handshake and inclines his head in his direction. “Right. You never had a Morty of your own. Just sixty-two replacements over almost thirty years. Some consider that a record.”

They enter the bar, and Rick keeps an eye trained on the boy, who returns the look with equal cautiousness. He thinks he knows this Morty, but he can’t be sure, not when he looks identical to the average. “Is that relevant?”

“No. I’m just making conversation. Let’s move on to business. Have a seat.” Unknown Morty motions to a nearby table and claims a chair on one side. He waits for them to do the same on the opposite side before continuing, “So, sell yourself. We’ll talk numbers if I’m interested.”

Morty nudges his arm and leans in to whisper in his ear. “Can I tell him what it does?”

Rick nods and pushes back in his chair, letting her take charge of the meeting. He watches with some amusement as she clears her throat and makes a big show of lacing her fingers together on top of the table like she’s about to deliver an important speech.

She has potential, but she’ll never learn if he tells her that. She’ll learn the way he did—the hard way.

Morty opens her mouth. “Have you ever—”

“—Not you. I’m talking to Sanchez.”

When she deflates at the point-blank interruption, Rick rolls his fatigued eyes. A headache blooms at his temple. “Just let her do her thing so we can get this over wi_-iiuh-_th. Jesus.”

“I’m not interested in what your bumbling protege has to say. Her ‘charms’ may work on Ricks, but I’m immune. So let’s cut the shit. What are you selling, and why should I buy it for the inflated price you have in mind?”

Morty grabs his arm and digs her fingernails in. He lets her cling as he gives the aloof boy a hard look. “It’s an ocular chip. If you find value in omniscience, you’ll buy it for my price. I’m not interested in haggling—I’ve got seven other buyers lined up.”

Unknown Morty props his chin up on his fist. “It’s stolen Citadel tech that shows dimension numbers, right? How’d you find it?”

It’s unnerving how relaxed he seems as he tramples through this sensitive conversation. Although there’s no reason to think he’s recording the meeting, Rick is painfully familiar with the council’s brand of punishment and chooses his response with care. “I didn’t know it was stolen. Traded for it at a warehouse during routine business.”

“‘Warehouse,’” he echoes with a snort. “Didn’t I tell you to cut the shit? No one’s listening in. You found it at Glormoquar Outlet.”

“I admit to nothing.”

“I’m serious. I’d have to be a dumbass to implicate myself, especially when I tell you I was there not too long ago. You cut the chip out of Yolrtvok’og’s eye.”

Rick sees red. “…And you stole my iridescent trunderonite, you little shit.”

“Careful, Sanchez.” Unknown Morty laughs. “That’s a class-A felony.”

Morty tugs his sleeve. “Rick, let’s get out of here. I don’t like this…”

Rick ignores her. “Why’d you do_-oouh _ it?”

“I think a better question is, ‘Why didn’t I steal the ocular chip?’” Unknown Morty mimics his posture by kicking back in his own chair. “The answer: I left it there for you because I want to trade it. Consider it a gesture of goodwill.”

“Trade it for what?”

“I’ll give you the iridescent trunderonite if you cancel your arrangement with Ay-Triple-Zero and make a new one with me. I want the mature Gretandeloplasts. You’re going to prime them for me.”

This time, Rick laughs. It’s forced. “The ocular chip isn’t worth a fraction of those.”

“I know. But you don’t really have a choice, which is why I’m giving it to you now as goodwill. If you don’t agree to my terms, you lose—what was it? The United States’s net worth in 2026 multiplied by eighty-three. I don’t think your pride can handle it, but I promise to soften the blow.”

This Morty is just as calculating as he expected—maybe more so. He doesn’t know where the Gretandeloplasts are, so he’s holding the iridescent trunderonite hostage. That he knows about them, about the deal with A-000, is concerning. J19ζ7 would never share that with anyone, but is A-000 stupid enough to run his mouth? His backdoor deals are illicit even by Citadel standards, and the last thing he needs is to be hunted.

He thinks about J19ζ7’s growth catalyst, and the reminder sets his frazzled nerves at ease. The boy believes he’s at an impasse, and that works to his advantage right now. “You’ve scrubbed away your dimension number, but I know you. Your Rick abando_-oouh-_ned you because of your intelligence. You’re useless as a Morty. Nobody wants you.”

Unknown Morty looks bored by the accusation. “And I know you. You’re a con man who hides in fine print and fees. You commit atrocious acts to make everyone fear you—it’s your bravado. You’re hiding the fact that you’re submissive.”

Rick clenches his jaw and allows the silence to stretch on. There’s no point in disputing it. While he doesn’t feel shame over what he likes—but maybe a little over how it originated, through years of fighting for every foothold of respect and getting shit on with every soul-crushing inch—he knows better than anyone that reputation is everything. It’s one rumor. One rumor doesn’t hold much sway over decades of belligerent dominance over the black market. But something tells him to be cautious.

Morty’s questioning gaze pierces the side of his face as she gives another insistent tug at his arm. She looks exhausted. He’s exhausted. It’s time to go. He’ll think better with some sleep.

“You love to be forced, and that’s why you’ll do this for me,” Unknown Morty challenges. “Yeah, I’m a terrible Morty. But am I ‘Rick’ enough for you, Sanchez?”

Rick rummages in his lab coat for his portal gun. He shoves out of his chair, opens a portal, and drags Morty by her wrist. “Nope.”


	9. Submission Isn't Weakness

At first, Morty is devastated by what she learns. Her restless mind keeps her awake and staring at the ceiling as fatigue clouds her vision.

She has never considered her own sexual identity enough to assign a label on it. What does “submissive” mean, exactly? Is _ she _ submissive because she likes being smaller than Rick—weaker, less intelligent? Can two people be submissive together? Is that why Rick never touches her and why he only responds when forced into it? The questions continue to build unanswered. Half an hour crawls by before she sneaks downstairs to steal Dad’s laptop for some research.

The fuzzy shape of Rick’s bedroom door looms in the darkness at the bottom of the steps. She wonders if he’s asleep or if he’s working on some late-night invention in the garage. Maybe he’s planning on how to deal with that other Morty’s threats. It takes a great amount of effort not to reach for the doorknob and find out.

Dad’s laptop is in its usual spot connected to its charger on the floor beside his armchair. She tugs the cord out of its port and, with the stolen device in hand, returns upstairs to make herself comfortable on her bed.

After her eyes adjust to the glare of white light in her face, Morty begins with a basic search of “submissive” to confirm that she interpreted it correctly. Google brings up a box and directs her to the definition: “ready to conform to the authority or will of others; meekly obedient or passive.” Reading it a second and third time doesn’t make it sound any more like Rick. But it does sound somewhat like her.

Another box entitled “Dominance and submission” draws her attention. It offers a Wikipedia blurb: “Dominance and submission is a set of behaviors, customs, and rituals involving the submission of one person to another in an erotic episode or lifestyle.” She chews her lip as she feels a flicker of interest.

With two clicks, Wikipedia waits in the next tab over, and she continues to scan the websites, finding dictionary entries and various articles on “how to be submissive in bed.” She selects two articles and begins reading the first one. It’s a question-and-answer session between a sex therapist and a couple new to dominance and submission, and Morty finds plenty of new information about safe words, bondage, and punishments.

As she reads, her mind conjures up a fantasy: She’s kneeling on a bed, wrists tied behind her back. Her ass is in the air, her head on the blanket—like when T-7ϕ80 dry-humped her. But, this time, it’s N-66ς in his place, and clothes aren’t keeping him from smearing his pre-cum on her clitoris. Sweat makes their skin stick together as he covers her back with his larger body and squeezes her thighs around his cock. His gruff baritone is in her ear as he comments on how slutty she sounds. A shudder of pleasure climbs her spine.

But then she pictures it differently: Six-Six-Sig, who inspires fear in other Ricks and sells terrifying weapons, bound by his wrists and ankles. His glasses are lopsided, his hair mussed. He’s glaring because he doesn’t want to admit how much he loves to be tied up, but the bulge straining in his pants gives him away. He’s helpless and horny—but too proud to beg for it.

What did Bartender Morty say? _ “You love to be forced.” _

In her fantasy, she does whatever she wants to him. He can’t make an excuse and disappear through a portal. N-66ς is hers, and he wants her to fuck him even if he won’t say it. She can unbuckle and unzip his pants and pull out his dick, and she doesn’t even have to ask for permission.

She can keep him forever.

Morty’s arousal spikes, and she chews on a knuckle. This new dynamic excites her in a way that makes her sick with anticipation. It doesn’t feel like a fantasy when she can go downstairs right now and make it happen—awaken or interrupt Rick with her hand down his pants.

But she doesn’t have the courage to actually do it. Yesterday, she had to talk herself into touching his thigh, and things spiraled from there. The first step feels impossible until she takes it. Instead, she turns back to her research, a “beginner’s guide.” It addresses how society expects women to be confident and aggressive in business settings, but she applies the same expectation to Rick.

If other Ricks knew N-66ς was submissive, would he still be a successful salesman? Would they fear and respect him enough to do business?

_ Maybe that’s why he hides it, _ she thinks.

Morty opens the search function on the Wikipedia page with the keyboard shortcut and skims the information with her new litany of words and phrases. The text is worded too dryly to hold her sexual interest, so, after some time, she closes it and opens Pornhub for some visual learning. She tweaks her wording until she spots “submissive male” as a related search.

After she masturbates to a video showcasing orgasm denial—strange and not quite her taste—clears the browser history, and returns the laptop back downstairs, she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

* * *

* * *

Ten and a half hours later, Morty rolls out of bed for a shower. She’s mid-yawn and rubbing one eye when the bathroom door flies open with a fog of moist heat, revealing a freshly showered Rick, who’s carrying his bundle of clothing under one arm. Water droplets shake free of his hair where it’s plastered to his forehead. A wispy trail of blue draws her attention as it disappears under his towel, loosely tucked in at his jutting hip bone.

Two things pop into her mind. Since he’s always awake hours before her, she hasn’t seen him use the shower since he moved in. Also, he’s showing more skin than he ever has. Her new fantasy of him—wrists and ankles bound, helpless and horny—returns, bringing heat to her face.

“M-morning, Rick.” _ God, _ she wants him so badly that she’s ogling him in the hallway. Last night’s research session piqued her curiosity in exciting and terrifying ways, and she’s dying to see how many new reactions she can get out of him with what she learned.

Rick’s hand goes to the fold of his towel, and her greedy eyes follow. “Morning.”

“Can—” It comes out in a squeak, so she clears her throat and tries again. “Can we talk?”

“Sure. After lunch.” He leans forward and says, low and only for her, “Stop eye-fucking me.”

He’s almost to the staircase when she regains her voice, still too high-pitched to be casual. “No.”

Rick touches the railing and looks back at her. “No?”

“N-no.” Morty raises her chin instead of dropping it like she wants to—and hopes she looks defiant instead of scared. “I wanna talk now.”

Water drips on the hallway carpet with a muffled pattering. She studies the bones in his back—each vertebrae, shoulder blade, and rib. He’s thin and elderly, but she knows better than to think she can overpower him.

“Please,” she adds, shrinking the tiniest bit.

Rick’s nostrils flare in a silent sigh. He releases the railing, passes her, and rounds the corner into her bedroom. “Make it quick. I need coffee.”

There are consequences if Mom catches her with him, but that does little to dissuade her from following him in and closing the door with a click. After a few seconds, she turns around to face him.

Rick has made himself comfortable on the edge of her bed and tossed his clothes on the floor. Even half-nude, he holds his usual commanding presence, making the room feel small and stifling. She feels her knees weakening and fights the urge to slide down the door and cower on the floor like the scared mess she is. The fear is like a mixture of public speaking and the suspense before the first drop on a jerky wooden roller coaster.

Morty hates that innate self-doubt. She loathes her timidity. This is just _ Rick, _ and all she can do is squash herself against the door. She knows him—lives with him, sleeps one floor above him—but can’t pry her hand off the doorknob. Only she would ask for something and then find a quick escape from it.

Rick is the one to break the lengthy stillness. “I’m gonna assu_-uuh-_me this is about what you heard this morning.”

She nods.

“Yeah, I’m submissive. You know what that means, Morty?”

She pauses for a beat and nods again.

“Okay, well, forget everything you learned, and—I’ve got spyware on your parents’ computers, so I saw it all. Don’t look so shocked. Anyway, it _ doesn’t _ mean you or that other Morty can order me around like you’ve got an invisible leash on me. All it means is I like to get off, but it isn’t—I have a more discerning palate than most.”

“O-okay. Um, explain it to me?” Morty asks, mustering enough control over herself to push away from the door and approach him with wobbly steps.

“All right.” Rick reclines on his hands. “I like to be fu_-uuh-_cked. I like it even more when I’m tied up. It has to be tight enough so I can trick myself into thinking I’m completely vulnerable. Gets my adrenaline going. Also, scratching, biting, choking, hitting—the rougher the better. I get off on being humili_-iiiuh-_ated. I wanna feel lower than shit, and some Ricks do it really well. No safe words, no after-sex cuddling.”

A shaky exhale escapes her. This whole situation feels dirty. Can she do those things to him? As she stares up at his face and acknowledges her affection for him, she doubts it. But other Ricks can. Other Ricks _ have. _ Thinking of someone like T-7ϕ80 tying up N-66ς and making him bleed sends a shiver up her spine. Like many things, she doesn’t know how to process it.

“Do they know you…” Morty clears her throat with exaggerated force. “D-do other Ricks know you’re submissive?”

“Nope. But they know my reputation, and it makes them fight twice as hard to brag about fucking me. I take it and deal it back tenfold the next time they need to buy something from me. It balances o_-ouuuht. _ Secret’s safe. I win every time.”

“Okay. Who’s Ay-Triple-Zero? And what are Grenalo… plast-thingies?”

“Yeah… thought that’d come up. Gretandeloplasts are—basically, they transmit schematics in the form of vibrations and rewire your brain into synthesizing foreign chemicals to ‘host’ their presence. You _ feel _ the schematics, Morty. You feel them, hear them, and obey on a cellular level. They dominate your mind and wipe it clean—no id, ego, or superego. And Rick Ay-Triple-Zero is gonna buy them from me.”

“Jeez… Wh-why would he want those?”

Rick rubs a hand over his face. “Uhh, it’s not really part of the business—hell, any business—to ask what the customer’s doing with the product. If he wants to enslave a planet, that’s his prerogative.”

The answer doesn’t surprise her, not after Morty B-291 told her how N-66ς makes Ricks “more evil.” But her brow still twists with worry. “Is Ay-Triple-Zero… evil?”

“He’s arrogant, narcissistic, and unhinged. Resourceful. The kind of Rick who would hide weapons in his cat’s fat folds.” He pauses. “Yeah, he’s fucking evil. But, again, that’s his prerogative as long as he pays me.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“How does anyon_-euuh _ meet ‘The’ Rick Sanchez? He breaks in uninvited and tries to make everyone his bitch. Now, this deal—actually, it’s a funny story.”

It’s a tale that needs some backstory, so he helps her paint a mental picture of A-000: a figure with cropped hair and an easy—albeit unsettling—grin. He’s prone to daydreaming and often retreats into his own mind. While most Ricks are logical thinkers, he leans more toward the abstract, which is part of his eccentricity. His “identifier” is his cane, which he carries with him at all times. Otherwise, he’s average.

“He’s a huge joke to Rick-kind, but none of them have the balls to say anything to his face. Serio_-oouhhh-_usly, he’s insane. They say he lost it when he accidentally killed his own Beth. She was something like five years old.”

“H-how—?!”

“—I don’t know. And good luck ever getting it out of him if it’s true. Having a conversation with him is like getting a CT scan. You want a straight answer? He’s more interested in analyzing your posture and speech impediments and hairstyle—and figuring out whether they’re products of you getting beat up as a kid because he ‘would’ve labeled you as prey and thrown the first punch before naptime.’ True story. Probably tortured small animals, too.”

“Aw, jeez, Rick. He sounds… Wow.”

“Yep. He despises all Ricks—‘impostors’ to him. He’ll acknowledge dimension numbers, but he doesn’t see any of us as Rick Sanchez.” He gives a noncommittal shrug and adds, “Oh, yeah, and that’s not even his real dimension number. He scrubbed his own and strangled Ay-Triple-Zero to death forty years ago.”

Morty stares up at him with an agape mouth.

“But you gotta give him credit; he invented the first portal gun eleven seconds before anyone else, and that’s a sempiternity in Rick Sanchez Time. If you meet this guy, don’t ever ask him about it. He’ll get tri_-iuuh-_ggered like nothing else.”

“I-I don’t think I want to meet him…” What she doesn’t say is that hearing about him has scared the intrigue out of her. “So, what happened?”

“Ehh. Basically, he called me a ‘quasi-copy ass polyp’ and threatened me at gunpoint, so I dismantled his depth perception. It was a one-of-a-kind drug I spent a fortune making just for him. Now, he walks around—he can’t see the world in three dimensions, Morty. Walks around like he’s got a head injury and runs into shit a lot. It’s hilarious. I wish you could see it.”

The impossible happens—pity replaces fear just as it takes root. The ominous figure in her mind encounters the more formidable Six-Six-Sig, limps away crippled, and trips over the door frame on the way out. The twisting in her chest returns with a vengeance. What does it mean when someone like N-66ς calls someone else “fucking evil” but does _ that? _

“He can’t read with his eyes anymore, so he uses Braille,” Rick continues with laughter in his tone. “And his artistry was unrivaled, but—holy shit, you should see it now. I heard rumors about a torture chamb_-errr _ wallpapered with his designs. There’s actually this warped dimension that looks exactly like them. Remind me to show it to you sometime; I guarantee you’ll throw up and pass out in eight seconds flat.”

“N-no, thanks… I don’t wanna throw up or pass out. Does he know you drugged him?”

He shrugs. “I told him.”

Morty recoils in shock. “And he’s not—I mean, he still wants to do business with you? He’s not angry?”

“That’s what happens when you’re ‘The Guy.’ He approached me on neutral ground, so I went big with the Gretandeloplasts. Didn’t think he’d agree.”

“Right…” The more she learns, the worse she feels. It seems like a good time for a subject change. Her skittish gaze darts between her feet and his face. “So, anyway, it’s just, um, during s-sex? Being submissive?”

Rick gives her an indecipherable look. “When a punk-ass kid tells me to ruin the be_-euugh-_st deal of my career, I don’t get hard over it. When an arrogant Rick-hole calls me a ‘quasi-copy ass polyp,’ I retaliate. You gotta respect me first.”

She swings her head up with wide eyes. “I respect you, Grandpa Rick.”

“I know.”

When silence claims the room, Morty senses that Rick is about to leave, so she blurts out, “Y-y-you didn’t—I was gonna sell the ocular chip to that other Morty. But, um… What about my prize?”

“What about it? Yo_-ouu-_u didn’t actually sell the chip.”

“But it’s not my fault you turned him down. I-I did everything I was supposed to, Rick. He—technically, he was gonna buy it. I deserve _ something, _ right?”

His thoughtful frown isn’t the immediate “no” she was expecting, but it hurts all the same when he pushes himself upright, collects his clothes, and leaves with a mutter about coffee.

* * *

* * *

For lunch, Dad makes grilled ratatouille linguine, a dish he learned from television. He recruits Morty into watching the boiling pasta for him as he prepares a tray of vegetables with oil and seasoning. Mom, with crossed arms and a judgmental quirk to her brow, leans against the wall.

“Pasta for lunch? Really?” she snipes as Dad takes the tray outside to the grill. “I thought we were doing sandwiches.”

“The kids are tired of sandwiches,” he says through the open door. “I thought we’d try something new for once.”

Morty isn’t tired of sandwiches, but she says nothing, giving the noodles a dutiful little twirl. She knows her father well enough to translate: _ He’s _ tired of sandwiches, and he wants to prove he can cook. Like with most of her parents’ interactions, this is a continuation of a previous argument. Dad is building up to a devastating “I-told-you-so,” and Mom isn’t drunk enough to ignore it.

Steam pours out of the pot and leaves a moist residue on Morty’s wrist as she stares down into the churning water. She could sabotage her father with any number of spices from the nearby rack—thyme, cumin, cinnamon, ground peppercorns. There’s some apple cider vinegar and soy sauce next to it.

Dad doesn’t have a fraction of Mom’s pride; when he fails, he bows his head and sulks instead of taking it out on everyone else. But, to him, every small victory is the greatest of mankind’s achievements, and he’ll rub it in until it catches fire. It’s kind of sick, but the safest way to defuse the fight is by letting his psyche take another blow.

“Jesus, Jerry, are you trying to give us diarrhea with all that oil?”

“It’s what the recipe calls for, Beth! Just let me do my thing, okay? You can criticize after you’ve tried it.”

“Oh, I’m _ so _ glad I have your permission.”

Morty glances over her shoulder at Mom, who has stuck her head outside. After a beat of hesitation, she reaches for the vinegar and soy sauce.

“Pasta, huh?” The question derails her just as her fingertips touch sticky plastic. She finds Rick looming at her side and looking into the pot. The steam fogs his glasses, so he takes a step back to wipe them on his shirt. “Good choice. I’m sick of sandwiches.”

Morty frowns and retracts her arm. All plans of sabotage dissipate as she gives the unmolested pot another swirl with little enthusiasm. Later, she reassures herself that it’s the right choice to never disappoint Rick—even if it means listening to her parents’ screaming match.

Summer tangles her fork in her pasta and spears a few vegetables. When she takes a bite, her eyebrows arch. It’s enough to tear her gaze away from her phone screen. “Wow, Dad. Not bad.”

Who knew? Dad can cook.

“Why is everyone so surprised? Of course, I can cook!”

“And I can talk my way into getting an anal massage on koilotitaphobic Tpoferia,” Rick says through a mouthful of ratatouille as he shovels it in, “but you don’t see me je_-errr-_rking myself off over it.”

“Koilo_—what? _ Tell me something, Rick: Does anyone ever know what the hell you’re talking about with your senile ramblings?”

Mom brandishes her fork at Dad. “Don’t talk to him like that. He has more presence of mind than you’ll ever have.”

“I’ll talk to him however I like! And what kind of role model brings up ‘anal massages’ and ‘jerking off’ at the table while we’re eating? I mean—Morty, for Christ’s sake, cover your ears. You, too, Summer.”

Morty leaves the kitchen with a mumble, knowing she won’t be heard. Summer isn’t far behind. It doesn’t escape her notice that Rick continues eating with his usual unaffected expression. She wonders what he thinks of the constant fighting—and if all of his sixty-something dimensions were exactly the same.

_ Sixty-two dimensions over thirty years, _ she thinks with a sudden realization of how staggering a number that really is. She tries to picture all those Mortys in one room but concludes they wouldn’t fit. And the only thing setting her apart from them is her gender; otherwise, she’s exactly the same.

“Sometimes, I really hate them,” her sister admits, interrupting her internal conflict and collapsing on the couch. “I’m thinking about emancipating myself. Any halfway-decent lawyer will agree that this is, like, extremely unhealthy.”

Morty sits next to her. “You’re really gonna leave?”

“Yeah.” Summer taps something into her phone. After a lengthy pause, she sighs, tilts her head back, and throws an arm over her eyes. “…I don’t know. Things have just gotten way worse since Grandpa died, you know?”

“I mean, that’s not completely—”

“—And I don’t know what annoys me more: listening to them fight every single day or the fact that you and Mom don’t fucking care about Grandpa anymore. Our _ real _ one,” she hisses in sudden malice, jumping up from the couch. “You realize that guy in there is never gonna be him, right? But you’re acting like nothing’s changed, and that’s beyond fucked up.”

* * *

* * *

The house empties quickly after lunch. With his customary and succinct, “Later,” Rick takes a portal to who-knows-where. A black van arrives for Summer, who leaves with no mention of when she’ll be back. After loading the dishwasher with measurable violence, Mom snatches up her purse and, ignoring Dad’s calls, storms out to her car.

Morty kneels on the floor to play with her kitten, and, perhaps, the sight of the squirming orange fluff makes the stench hanging in the air more noticeable. Dad tells her as much as he pockets his wallet and crosses the living room to the front door. He isn’t too distracted to delegate last-minute chores and orders her to clean the litter box. The door shuts, ending all discussion.

She moves to the couch and watches interdimensional cable by herself. It’s Rick’s gift to the family, but no one else has noticed it yet. With everyone coming and going lately, she’s the only one staying home long enough to watch it.

Settling in for a marathon of _ Time-Lapse Pickling, _ she tries to bury her despondence even as negativity creeps in. Rick has left without her again, and it feels like punishment. It shouldn’t—her old Rick never took her anywhere. But part of her hoped things would be different.

The numbers sixty-two and thirty flash in her mind once again, followed by seven in ten. Morty isn’t very good at math, but even she can understand the significance of these statistics. To her, they say she could’ve been lost in the crowd, but she was born different. She can stand out from the other Mortys as long as she doesn’t give up.

It’s a small consolation in her current mood. She heaves a little sigh and turns her attention to the television screen, only to have her view blocked by a violent flash of green. A portal has appeared in front of her.

“Smells like cat shit in here_-eughh.” _

Morty perks up to greet Rick—

—but her eyes land on the Morty, a boy, standing at his side. Betrayal hits her like a gut punch. Her eyes seek Rick for an explanation, but she quickly realizes he’s not N-66ς. She doesn’t recognize him until she spots the cane in his grip.

They’re both looking at her.

“Jeez,” Other Morty mutters, “a girl Morty? Isn’t that kinda rare, Rick?”

“Mm-hmm. En-Six-Six-Sigma’s latest discovery.”

This guy can’t possibly be A-000 from Rick’s story, can he? Morty is too intimidated to ask—to risk angering him with a poorly worded question—because she knows enough about him to understand how he feels about other Ricks. If he _ is _ the notorious A-000, he won’t answer to a dimension number, and it may even offend him to be called by one.

“Eff-Two-Delta-Ninety-Six,” Rick says, snapping her to attention, “where’s En-Six-Six-Sigma?”

“H-he left,” Morty whispers. “He never tells me where he goes. Sorry, I-I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Wasted trip? Too bad.” Other Morty nudges Rick, who grunts noncommittally.

Morty draws her knees to her chest and waits for the intruders to fire a portal and leave without a backward glance, but it becomes clear they intend to stay. She flicks her eyes between both of them. While Other Morty examines the living room with interested hums and commentary over the differences between their universes, Rick doesn’t take his eyes off her.

“Hey, you guys did the—y-you went to the Pacific Science Center, too?” Other Morty calls from just outside her line of sight. He must be going through their family photos. “The aquarium! I remember that place. Man, I haven’t been there in forever. A-and judging by this picture, neither have you, huh?”

Rick is still staring.

Morty licks her lips in nervousness.

“Oh, what’re you watching over here?” Other Morty, seemingly oblivious to the tension, parks himself in front of the television, blocking it with his body. “What’s that, pickling? They’re pickling a plargustarg. Huh. Wow, that’s out there. Y-you ever wonder how many interdimensional channels that are—that exist?”

“Infi_-iiugh-_nite, Morty. You couldn’t count them fast enough.”

“W-watch me, Rick. I’m gonna do it. Ready? Infinity and one, infinity and two, infinity and three…”

He rolls his eyes as Other Morty laughs.

Any doubts about this Rick’s identity dissipate when he tucks his cane under his arm and reaches forward. He’s trying to touch her, but his hand gropes the air. He can’t judge the distance between them because he has no depth perception. This is A-000.

_ He doesn’t seem evil, _ Morty frets, looking at his hand and weighing the cons of establishing a physical connection with him. How can he be evil with such a cheerful Morty at his side—and one who’s not even his real grandson because that person doesn’t exist? If the rumors are true, there’s no reason for A-000 to feel loyal to a Morty.

It seems strange to let another Rick touch her without N-66ς around to supervise, like they’re breaking an unwritten rule in the etiquette of interdimensional mingling. Even if this Morty is, in essence, _ her, _ she doesn’t know how she’d feel about letting him touch her belongings and sleep in her bed. In the same way, how would N-66ς feel about another Rick putting his hands on her without his permission?

But, even if she weren’t starved of affection, Morty is incapable of rebuffing Rick Sanchez in any of his forms. She reaches for him and wraps both of her hands around his palm and fingers. A-000 takes a careful step forward and finds her hair with his other hand.

Other Morty isn’t paying attention, too enthralled by the television screen to notice the way she preens under the fingernails scratching her scalp.

“Doesn’t this long hair get in the way of adventuring?” he asks, carding through a handful of her strands and working out the tangles. He’s more gentle than she expected.

“I don’t go on many adventures,” she admits. “Rick—ah, not—I-I mean, um, En-Six-Six-Sigma… H-he doesn’t take me with him much.”

He doesn’t seem bothered by her stumble.

She smiles shyly up at him.

* * *

* * *

A-000 is clumsy. He has already broken a few things while exploring the garage, but he kicks the debris underneath the workbench like it didn’t happen. Morty looks on with growing concern. What if N-66ς shows up soon? What if he blames her for not stopping this Rick from going through his stuff?

_ It’s not his stuff, either, _ whispers a small part of her. N-66ς did the same thing when he first arrived and made himself at home in her grandfather’s space. She stood by and watched it happen then, too, even though she doubted his identity. This thought keeps her rooted in place.

“This is how they think,” mutters a voice from behind her. Other Morty slipped into the garage while she was preoccupied.

“What?”

“Rick Sanchez,” he clarifies, crossing his arms. “Entitled to anything he can put his hands on. Even this one doesn’t see the difference between him and other Ricks, and he calls himself ‘the original.’ Right now, he thinks he’s your Rick, which is why he’s so comfortable breaking shit.”

Is this the same cheerful kid who was just joking around in the living room? He’s not stuttering over his words. He’s not even smiling. He seems—what’s the word? He seems jaded.

“You’re the same way,” he adds.

She furrows her brow at the accusation. “I wouldn’t do—”

“—No, not that. I mean, you don’t see the difference between Ricks. If your Rick were to die and another came in and filled his spot, you could acclimate to it.” He looks at her with a neutral expression. “Or maybe you already have.”

Morty feels like he just threw a bucket of freezing water over her. He’s right. Summer sees it, too. She has told herself over and over again that each new Rick isn’t her real grandfather, but she could easily become T-7ϕ80’s Morty—J19ζ7’s, even _ A-000’s. _ She’ll cry and mourn at first, but life will always return to normal as long as she has a Rick. Is she so messed up that she can’t tell the difference between right and wrong anymore? Has death lost its meaning, its impact? It’s like everyone’s living in Rick’s world, and he jumbles the rules until nobody knows what they are anymore.

_ Mom, too, _ she thinks with a creeping of horror. Her chest feels tight. _ She replaced Grandpa. It’s like he never died. _

“Am I wrong?” he goads in her prolonged silence.

She swallows a lump in her throat and clutches her chest. The pressure is getting worse, but she can’t ease it. “H-how… how do you know about it?”

He shrugs. “I pay attention.”

“You’re the same way,” she wheezes, echoing his previous words back at him. A sudden crash of A-000 breaking yet another device makes her flinch violently. She aches with the urge to clean up after him and put everything back the way N-66ς left it, but she can’t move.

Other Morty looks at her like she’s stupid. “What gave you that idea? Was it how I started out by telling you all Ricks are the same?”

“What I mean is… y-you’re doing the same thing he is. You’re pretending to be a Morty—a different Morty because you don’t see a difference.” It took her some time to recognize him, but, when he talks like this, he stands out as a Morty, even as a boy. He’s too unique to disappear into the crowd, but he’s definitely capable of it. “Does Ay-Triple-Zero know you replaced his Morty?”

“There was nothing to replace.” He finds a point across the garage with his eyes and sighs, sounding bored. “We’re all just holes filling roles.”

“Then why is he…” Morty trails off, glancing between him and A-000. “B-but why are you—”

_ Then why are you with him if you hate him? Why is he with you if he doesn’t want a Morty? _ She wants to ask both questions and more, but she’s too rattled to speak in complete sentences.

“I’m here to watch.” Other Morty smiles at her, but it looks so _ cold. _ Green flashes across his face as a portal signals N-66ς’s return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(Insert excuses here.)_  
Seriously, though, this chapter sat close to finished for the longest time before I forced myself to work on the rest. I hope it's not too messy or grammatically incorrect. I'll try to look it over and see if I can catch anything.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Are you curious about what N-66ς looks like? I created a Google Drive folder specifically for artwork related to this story. Click [here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1M6o7BuF42j-rpsgRI0c8iNgtCT7rF9rs?usp=sharing) to see what I mean!
> 
> One of my readers, [RickedSab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RickedSab/pseuds/RickedSab), drew very cute fanart! Check it out [here!](https://rickedsab.tumblr.com/post/190159513695/for-wickedintentions-who-wrote-an-amazing-fic)


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